■J  !  i. 


/ 


* 

i 

LIBRARY 

OF   THE                                                                               1 

Theological    Seminary,        1 

PRINCETON,    N.J. 

Case, 

Siielf, 

£>.5..25.55D.iy;.jon 

4.TG!4seciipn 

Book 

,_ No, 

ORIGIN 


TIE   EOUE   GOSPELS. 


CONSTANTINE    TISCHENDORF, 

PROFESSOR  OP  THEOLOGY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  LEIPZIG. 


TRANSLATED,     UNDER    THE    AUTHOR   S    SANCTION,    BY 

WILLIAM    L.    GAGE. 


PROM  THE   FOURTH   GERMAN  EDITION, 

KE VISED   AKD   GEEATLY  ENLARGED. 


PUBLISHED    BY    THE 

AMERICAN    TRACT    SOCIETY, 

28    CORNHILL,    BOSTON. 


Entered  according  to  act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1867,  by 

THE    AMEEICAN    TRACT    SOCIETY, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of 
Massachusetts. 


TEANSLATOE'S   PEEFACE. 


|T  was  a  pleasant,  sunny  morning  in  May  of 
last  year,  when  I  called  at  the  modest  house 
■^  in  Leipzig  where  the  world-renowned  Pro- 
fessor Tischendorf  makes  his  home.  It  lies  in 
a  quiet,  pleasant  part  -  of  the  city,  away  from 
its  narrow  streets,  with  their  tall,  grim,  gaunt,  gray 
buildings,  some  of  them  centuries  old,  away  from 
the  quaint  churches,  the  castellated  and  fantastic 
Rath  Haus,  or  City  Hall,  as  we  should  call  it,  away 
from  the  places  which  Bach,  and  Mendelssohn, 
and  Goethe,  and  Dr.  Faustus  used  to  frequent,  and 
in  the  new  and  cheerful  streets  of  the  New  Town. 
For  Leipzig  grows  like  an  American  city;  its  an- 
cient limits  no  longer  hold  it  in,  but  it  is  shooting 
away  into  the  country  on  all  sides,  and  turning  the 
battle-field  where  Napoleon  received  his  first  great 
shock,  into  densely-built  streets  and  squares.  One 
would  almost  think  that  a  paleograjDhist  like  Tisch- 
endorf,  a  man  whose  life-work  is  the  exhuming  of 
lost  and  buried  manuscripts  and  the  making  out 
of  their  contents,  would  choose  for  his  home  one 

3 


4  TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE. 

of  those  old,  weather-beaten,  gaunt  houses  in  the 
heart  of  the  city;  but  when  I  saw  the  man,  I  could 
detect  at  a  glance  that  it  was  not  his  nature  to 
choose  anything  less  free,  i3leasant,  and  cheery 
than  those  suburban  streets,  and  their  modern, 
sunny  houses. 

I  did  not  venture  to  call  upon  this  eminent  man 
for  the  mere  gratification  of  a  natural  curiosity,  but 
for  the  i^urpose  of  ascertaining  one  or  two  facts 
which  I  needed  for  a  note  to  Ritter's  work  on  the 
Holy  Land,  which  I  was  then  editing  and  translat- 
ing. As  Ritter  had  been  a  near  and  valued  friend 
of  Tischendorf,  it  was  a  matter  of  great  satisfaction 
to  the  latter  that  an  American  had  proposed  to 
give  to  the  people  of  England  and  the  United 
States  a  version  of  the  works  of  that  great  and  ex- 
cellent man ;  and  no  welcome  could  be  more  cor- 
dial than  Tischendorf  extended.  He  is  by  no 
means  the  old,  smoke-dried,  bad-mannered,  garru- 
lous, ill-dressed,  and  offensively  dirty  man,  who  of- 
ten answers  in  Germany  to  the  title  of  Professor. 
On  the  contrary,  Tischendorf  is  a  man  looking 
young  and  florid,  though  probably  hard  upon  sixty. 
I  have  seen  many  a  man  of  forty  whose  face  is 
more  worn,  and  whose  air  is  older,  than  that  of  this 
OTeatest  of  German  scholars.  Nor  has  he  at  all 
that  shyness  which  a  life  in  the  study  is  almost 
sure  to  engender;  he  is  free,  open,  genial,  and  has 
the  manner  of  a  gentleman  who  has  traveled 
largely,  and  who  is  thoroughly  familiar  with  society. 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE.  0 

And  if  there  is  more  than  a  tinge  of  vanity  in 
his  talk,  if  he  does  not  weary  of  speaking  of  his 
own  works,  his  own  exploits,  his  own  hopes  and 
purposes  and  successes,  we  only  feel  that  he  can 
not  praise  himself  more  than  the  world  is  glad  to 
pi-aise  him,  and  that  all  the  eulogies  which  he 
passes  upon  himself  are  no  more  hearty  than  those 
which  all  the  great  scholars  of  the  age  have  lavished 
upon  him. 

Tischendorf,  hke  all  really  great  men,  is  as  ap- 
proachable as  a  child,  and  is  not  obliged  to  confine 
his  conversation  to  learned  subjects.  He  does  not 
speak  English  at  all,  but  Avill  give  his  English  or 
American  visitor  the  choice  of  five  languages, — 
Greek,  Latin,  Italian,  French,  and  German.  In  all 
of  these  he  is  at  home,  speaking  the  first  four  not 
in  any  stiff,  pedantic  way,  but  with  grace  and 
fluency.  Yet  he  loves  best  his  mother  tongue,  of 
course.  In  talking,  his  countenance  lights  up 
pleasantly,  his  style  becomes  sprightly,  his  action 
vivacious,  he  jumps  up,  runs  across  the  room  to 
fetch  a  book  or  document  or  curiosity,  enters  into 
his  guest's  affairs,  speaks  warmly  of  friends,  and 
evidently  enjoys  with  great  zest  his  foreign  reputa- 
tion. Of  two  Americans  he  sj^oke  with  great 
warmth,  —  Prof  H.  B.  Smith  of  New  York,  and 
Prof.  Day  of  New  Haven.  His  relations  mth  the 
great  English  scholars  and  divines  are  very  inti- 
mate ;  and  archbishops  and  deans  and  civil  digni- 
taries  of  the   highest   rank   are   proud   to    enjoy 


6  TIIANSLATOR'S   PREFACE. 

the  friendshiiD  of  this  great  and  genkil  German 
scholar. 

Tischendorf  gave  me  with  *his  own  lips  the  ac- 
count, which  in  its  printed  form  *  is  so  well  known, 
of  his  discovery  of  the  ancient  Sinaitic  Bible.  He 
told  me  of  his  three  separate  journeys  to  the  con- 
vent at  the  foot  of  Mount  Sinai  in  search  of  ancient 
manuscripts ;  of  the  bringing  to  light,  at  his  first 
visit,  of  large  fragments  of  the  Bible  as  well  as  of 
valuable  apocryphal  documents ;  of  his  discovery 
in  1853,  at  his  second  visit,  of  only  eleven  ad- 
ditional lines  from  the  book  of  Genesis  ;  of  the  ob- 
stacles put  in  his  way,  the  great  liberality  of  the 
Russian  government,  the  help  afforded  him  by 
eminent  j^rinces,  and  the  success  which  finally  at- 
tended him,  when,  in  the  autumn  of  1859,  he  was 
able  to  return  from  Cairo  to  St.  Petersburg  and 
lay  the  original  manuscript  of  the  Sinaitic  Bible 
in  the  hands  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia.  It  is  (uie 
of  the  oldest  written  documents  extant;  dating 
back  to  the  fourth  century,  about  the  time  of  the 
first  Christian  Emperor.  ISTo  wonder  that  the 
night  on  which  Tischendorf  made  this  great  dis- 
covery he  was  unable  to  sleep  for  joy,  and  danced 
in  his  room  for  very  excitement. 

Have  any  of  my  readers  ever  read  Freytag's 
masterly  romance  entitled  "The  Lost  Manuscript"? 

*  Given  in  the  JIassachusetts  Sabbath  School  Society's  recent  pub- 
lication of  Tiochendcrfs  little  work  for  popular  reading,  '-Wheq 
were  our  Gospels  written  ?  " 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE.  7 

It  seems  to  me  that  he  has  embodied  in  this  work, 
which  is  one  of  the  finest  products  of  German  gen- 
ius, very  much  of  the  feeling  which  such  men  as 
Tischendorf  experience  in  pursuing  such  investiga- 
tions, and  in  coming  to  such  results  as  this.  But 
more  momentous  by  far  in  its  relations  to  the  hu- 
man race  is  the  search  for  an  ancient  Bible  than 
that  for  a  lost  Tacitus ;  the  one  the  record  of  a 
nation's  decline  and  ruin,  the  other  the  promise  of 
a  world's  restoration ! 

During  our  interview,  Prof  Tischendorf  told  me 
that  he  was  then  re-writing  his  work  "  When  were 
our  Gospels  written?"  making  it  a  book  for  schol- 
ars instead  of  for  popular  readers,  and  enlarging 
it  to  three  times  its  original  size.  He  believed 
that  both  works  were  needed,  in  England  and 
America  no  less  than  in  Germany,  and  suggested 
to  me  to  undertake ,  the  translation  of  the  larger 
work.  I  promised  to  do  so  at  my  earliest  leisure, 
and  the!  result  is  now  before  the  public.  The  name 
of  the  work  1  have  ventured  to  change.  In  the 
German  it  bears  the  same  title  with  the  smaller 
sketch,  "When  were  our  Gospels  written?"  but 
fearing  lest  some  should  suppose  that  the  two 
books  are  almost  identical,  merely  different  issues 
of  the  same  work,  it  has  seemed  no  violence  to 
cjive  the  treatise  the  name,  "  Origin  of  the  Four 
Gospels."  The  learned  author  has  not  succeeded 
in  throwing  his  mateiials  together  in  a  way  to  at- 
tract hasty  readers ;  his  style  is  in  this  work  rather 


8  TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE. 

heavy,  hard,  and  disjointed;  but  great,  invaluable 
facts  are  there ;  and  there  is  no  lack  of  a  clear, 
well-poised,  thoroughly  guarded  critical  judgment, 
sound  faith,  and  earnest  purpose.  If  our  Chris- 
tian public  at  large  have  reason  to  be  grateful 
for  the  publication  of  the  little  work  of  Tischen- 
dorf,  our  clergymen,  theological  students,  and  pro- 
fessors have  no  less  cause  to  thank  the  great  Leip- 
zig scholar  for  furnishing  them  with  this  armory 
of  bright,  keen  weapons  to  be  employed  in  the 
overthrow  of  unbelief 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 


5^*^.c 


'HEN  in  January,  1865, 1  set  my  hand  to  the 
task  of  preparing  a  work  which  should 
^^^^  solve  for  the  satisfaction  of  cultivated  read- 
tgj°  ers  no  less  than  of  thorough  scholars  the 
question  of  the  genuineness  of  our  Gospels,  —  a 
question  which  stands  related  in  the  closest  man- 
ner to  the  great  topic  of  the  present  age,  the  Life 
of  Jesus,  —  I  was  fully  aware  that  those  theologians 
who  have  for  some  time  brought  the  scourge  of 
their  skeptical  and  unbelieving  theories  upon  the 
field  of  New-Testament  scholarship  would  take 
great  offense  at  my  work,  and  express  themselves 
strongly  against  it.  For  who  does  not  know  that 
these  men  have  long  forgotten  how  to  subject  their 
prejudices  to  the  results  of  conscientious  investiga- 
tion ?  Equally  well  known  is  it  that  they  are  ac- 
customed to  regard  nothing  as  having  scholarly 
and  scientific  value  unless  it  proceeds  from  their 
own  circle.  On  my  part,  however,  I  felt  it  to  be 
my  duty  to  take  up  arms  against  this  organized 
movement  to  convert  theological  science  into  so- 


10  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

]>histry,  and  give  powerful  support  to  the  anti- 
Christian  spirit  of  our  time ;  to  roeet  it  with  the 
results  of  rigid  inquiry,  and  with  the  earnestness 
of  convictions  which  have  matured  from  a  lifetime 
consecrated  faithfully  to  Christian  learning.  It 
seemed  to  be  only  in  this  way  that  I  could  advance 
the  sacred  interests  which  I  had  at  heart,  and  throw 
light  upon  the  questions  which  are  vitally  con- 
nected with  belief  in  the  Lord. 

Did  I  expect  to  escape  contradiction  and  the 
anger  of  opponents  ?  By  no  means.  Others  might 
hesitate  about  committing  themselves  absolutely 
to  a  service  in  behalf  of  the  interests  of  truth,  fear- 
ing to  encounter  the  sharp  thrusts  which  might  be 
directed  against  them ;  but  I  believed  that  I  ought 
to  and  must  cherish  no  such  fear,  and  solaced  myself 
with  the  thought  that  it  would  be  a  hard  matter  if 
what  I  might  suffer  from  the  calumny  of  enemies 
were  not  offset  by  the  approbation  of  those  who 
believe  in  the  purit)'^  of  my  intentions  and  the  up- 
rightness of  my  aim.  I  have  not  been  disappointed 
in  this.  The  disj^leasure  of  my  opponents  has  been 
manifested  in  a  shameless  manner.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  has  not  been  wanting  the  satis- 
faction of  seeing  my  little  book  received  in  many 
quarters  with  the  warmest  acceptance  and  heartiest 
recognition,  as  well  out  of  Germany  as  in  it.  In 
France,  Holland,  England,  Russia,  and  America, 
translations  have  appeared;  even  an  Italian  one 
was  made  at  Rome.     Yet  opposition  has  at  no  sin- 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE.  11 

gle  moment  failed  to  display  its  real  cliaracter;  the 
weapons  of  lying,  persecution,  and  calumny  have 
been  brought  to  bear  against  me ;  and  in  so  doing, 
the  blind  zeal  which  has  been  displayed  has  at 
times  suffered  the  grossest  ignorance  to  peep  out. 

Two  men  in  particular  have  undertaken  the  task 
of  assailing  my  work  with  the  weapons  m^entioned 
above,  —  Dr.  Hilgenfeld,  of  Jena,  and  Dr.  Yolkmar, 
of  Zmich.  The  first  has  devoted  to  this  task  an 
article  in  the  Review  which  he  edits,  heading  it, 
"  Constantine  Tischendorf  as  Defensor  Fidei."  As 
examples  of  the  disingenuous  statements  with 
which  he  figures  [strotzt],  I  adduce  the  following. 
Although  in  my  work  my  main  task  was  with  the 
canon  of  the  four  Gospels ;  although  I  in  no  place 
undertook  to  put  the  whole  New-Testament  canon 
on  the  same  footing,  as,  indeed,  no  thorough  scholar 
can  do;  and  although  I  do  not  speak  specifically 
of  the  whole  canon,  and  merely  put  together  as  of 
equal  canonicity  the  four  Gospels,  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  the  first  of  John,  and  the  first  of  Peter, 
yet  Hilgenfeld  wiites,  p.  330  :  "  The  cheering  result 
which  issues  from  this  illustration  of  the  subject  is 
the  fact  that  the  four  Gospels,  and  even  the  ichole 
canon  of  the  New  Testament,  can  be  assigned  to 
the  close  of  the  first  century."  Page  333  :  "  Than 
the  presupposition  that  the  close  of  the  New-Tes- 
tament canon  fills  at  the  end  of  the  first  century, 
nothing  is  more  incompatible,"  Page  336 :  "  The 
modern  apologist,  who  puts  a  full  and  fair  ending 


12,  AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 

of  the  ISTew-Testament  canon  at  the  close  of  the 
first  century."  Is  this  legerdemain,  or  a  purj^osed 
misleading  of  readers  ?  It  is,  it  must  be,  one  of  the 
two.  Naturally,  he  shuns  quoting  a  single  passage 
of  my  work  in  support  of  the  charge  which  he 
brings  against  me.^ 

Page  333,  note  2,  Hilgenfeld,  in  commenting  on 
Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  iii.  392,  and  alluding  to  Papias, 
thus  writes :  "  That  the  line  of  presbyters  is  opened 
here  by  the  apostles,  can  only  be  more  than  doubt- 
ful with  a  critic  like  Tischendorf "  But  would  any 
reader  suspect  from  this  that  I  was  following  the 
express  declaration  of  Eusebius,  to  whom  we  are 
indebted  for  almost  all  our  knowledge  of  Papias's 
book,  and  to  whose  silence  the  negative  school 
itself  is  indebted  for  its  powerful  evidence  against 
John  ?  And  that  the  "  Defensor  Fidei "  is  here  in 
accord  with  the  two  heroes  of  the  negative  school 
■ — Strauss  and  Penan  —  has  not  the  third  hero  of 
that  school  ignored  this,  or  sought  to  whitewash  it 
over  ? 

On  page  337,  Hilgenfeld  writes:  "The  'honora- 
ble weapons '  on  which  Tischendorf  prides  himself 
are,  for  that  matter,  made  very  doubtful  even  in 
the  homilies  of  Clemens  Romanus."  On  this,  he 
proceeds  to  quote  my  words  [in  j;he  first  edition  of 
this  book]  :  "  It  is  of  unabated  interest  that  the  al- 
leged and  acutely  argued  cropping  out  of  John's 
Gospel  in   this  celebrated  record  of  the  Jewish- 

1  See  notes  in  Appendix. 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE.  13 

Christian  tendency,  based  on  the  recent  discovery 
by  Dressel,  at  Rome,  of  the  closing  portion  of  the 
document,  where  there  'is  an  undoubted  use  of 
John's  story  of  the  man  whose  blindness  was  healed, 
—  though  it  may  be  that  the  genial  habit  of  skep- 
ticism will  yield  to  no  array  of  truth,  —  lias  entirely 
fallen  out  of  sight."  On  this,  he  remarks :  "  As  I, 
to  whose  critical  investigations  into  the  Gospels  of 
Justin  a  note  at  this  point  refers,  do  not  wish  to 
hold  Dr.  Tischendorf  to  be  a  base  calumniator,  I 
must  conclude  that  he  has  taken  a  tAvelve-years' 
slumber  over  the  matter  with  which  ho  is  dealino-. 
Dressel's  complete  edition  of  Clemens's  HomiUes, 
published  in  1853,  is  for  Tischendorf  a  book  only 
'just  out.'  Then  he  rubs  his  eyes,  and  simply 
comes  to  the  same  conclusion  that  I  came  to  fif- 
teen years  ago,  before  the  conclusion  of  the  Homi- 
lies was  brought  to  light."  To  this  I  answer,  that 
my  allusion  to  Hilgenfeld  was  coupled  with  the 
expression  "  acutely  argued,"  and  that  it  was  ex- 
pressly stated  that  Hilgenfeld's  words  dated  from 
1850;  and  when  I  had  occasion  to  speak  of  Dres- 
sel's work  as  "new,"  I  appended  the  date,  1853. 
Still  some  trace  of  his  base  calumniation  must  re- 
main. And  Hilgenfeld  draws  my  own  words, 
"  Though  it  may  be  that  the  genial  habit  of  skepti- 
cism will  yield  to  no  array  of  truth,"  down  upon 
his  own  head.  A  glance  shows  that  he  is  entitled 
to  the  full  ajiplication  of  it ;  and  one  may  not  hear 
of  the  "  genial  habit  of  skepticism  "  without  seeing 


14  AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 

that  Dr.  Hilgenfeld  is  alluded  to.  He  acts  as  if  he 
did  not  know  that  it  is  Dr.  Volkmar  who  has  so 
weakened  his  confession  of  a  use  of  John's  Gospel 
by  the  Clementines  that  the  doubts  respecting  the 
authenticity  of  this  Gospel  remain  undisturbed ;  and 
he  writes:  "But  Tischendorf,  although  an  honorable 
man  in  everything  else,  has  in  this  instance  been 
buried,  with  his  critical  knowledge,  in  the  deepest 
slumber."  Everywhere  Hilgenfeld  acts  as  if  he  be- 
lieved that  all  that  he  advances  must  be  contested 
by  me.  I  did  not  purpose  to  take  him  for  the  sub- 
ject of  my  book :  he  comes,  as  all  can  see,  only  un- 
der consideration  so  far  as  he  follows  in  the  direc- 
tion which  I  oppose.  Does  he  leave  this  direction 
at  any  point,  and  under  any  circumstances,  he  be- 
gins to  cry  out  about  "  dishonor,"  "  going  to  sleep," 
"  Spanish  knight-errantry,"  and  the  like,  as  in  page 
336,  where  says,  "  In  him  (Justin)  I  have  long  rec- 
ognized the  use  of  the  three  first  Gospels,  a^d  even 
the  possibility  of  an  acquaintance  with  the  fourth. 
This  puts  Tischendorf  in  the  attitude  of  spurring 
his  Rosinante,  Don  Quixote-like,  against  wind- 
mills as  imagined  giants,  in  his  zeal  to  show  the 
use  of  the  four  Gospels  by  these  apologists."  The 
zeal  of  the  Spanish  knight  lies  in  the  following 
forcible  words :  "  That  Justin  repeats  our  Matthew 
in  many  passages  is  undeniable ;  that  he  knows  and 
follows  Mark  and  Luke,  is  in  several  j^laces  ex- 
tremely probable." 2  Then  a  page  and  a  half  are 
devoted  to  a  discussion  of  the  effort  which  has  been 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.  15 

made  to  discredit  this  universally  accredited  result : 
as  much  more  follows  respecting  the  use  of  John, 
neither  exactly  answering  to  HilgenfeTd's  views  about 
fighting  against  windmills.  Looking  back  at  his 
loose  statements,  specimens  of  which  have  here  been 
given,  and  more  familiar  with  the  discovery  of  his 
dishonesty,  the  same  pitiable  "Theologus  quem 
terrestres  certe  superi  .  .  .  extra  ordinem  theologi- 
cum  arcuerunt"  writes  in  his  "N.  T.  extra  canonem 
receptum,"  "  Ceterum  Tischendorfii  argumenta 
qualia  omnino  sint  iam  diiudicavi  et  huius  viri  sub- 
dolam  in  imj^ugnandis  adversariis  rationem  palani 
detexi."  In  the  same  work  he  boldly  continues 
the  flow  of  his  dishonest  effusions,  writing  on  page 
69,  "  Tischendorfium  in  famoso  libello."  .  .  .  Page 
44 :  "  Calumniatoris  partes  agere,  quasi  negaremus 
Matth.  evang.  h.  1.  laudari  nemo  non  videt."  But 
what  is  on  that  page  44  to  which  he  refers  ?  Not 
a  word  respecting  him ;  I  only  transcribed  verbally 
what  Yolkmar  wrote,  where  he  prefaced  his  invec- 
tives against  myself  and  others  with  the  ap23lause 
which  he  had  received  from  Hilgenfeld  and  Strauss: 
"  quod  Ed.  mea  Esdrte  Prophetse ;  .  .  .  dinnibus 
qui  hucusque  de  ea  re  ex  Ed.  mea  iudicarunt  per- 
suasit,  etiam  Hilgenfeldio ;  .  .  .  et  Straussio.  .  .  . 
Reussium  satis  pigebit."  -Is^not  thisjo  wear  with- 
out _sharae  the  liar's  brazen  brow  ? 

But  Dr.  Yolkmar  has  surpassed  even  Hilgenfeld 
in  the  use  of  these  weapons.  I  had  occasion  to 
show  in  my^ook,  by  a  number  of  examples,  that  a 


16  AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 

great  many  trickeries  had  been  employed  for  tiie 
purpose  of  discrediting  the  evidence  borne  by  the 
second  centurj^  to  our  Gospels.  This  evidence  w;;s 
in  part  put  aside,  where  it  could  be,  by  bringing 
forward  the  testimony  of  lost  writings ;  sometimes 
the  witnesses  were  made  more  modern  than  they 
really  were,  and  transformed  from  a  decisive  epoch 
to  one  without  significance,  so  far  as  the  matter 
under  discussion  is  afiected,  while  sometimes  they 
were  charged  with  ignorance  or  deceit :  here  the 
writings  which  gave  evidence  were  regarded  as 
not  genuine,  or  at  any  rate  as  interpolated  so  far  as 
to  invalidate  their  testimony ;  while  there  the  senti- 
ments of  ancient  writers  have  all  their  pith  taken 
out  by  falsification  and  perversion.  All  this  is  ef- 
fected by  Volkmar  with  a  skill  that  is  unparalleled, 
so  far  as  my  modest  knowledge  enables  me  to 
judge.  I  ought  not  to  refrain  fi'om  giving  some 
instances  of  his  ways  of  proceeding.  In  respect  to 
Herakleon,  he  writes,  page  28 :  "  Tischendorf  states, 
'  This  man  was  reckoned  by  Origen  as  contempora- 
neous with  Valentine,  which  is  confirmed  by  Epij^h- 
anius.'  Yes,  good  God ;  '^  but  if  this  is  made  out, 
why  waste  another  word  upon  it  ?  "  On  page  130 : 
"  Far  from  belonging  to  the  earlier  disciples  of  Val- 
entine, he  is  one  of  the  very  last  distinguished  heads 
of  that  Gnosticism,  and  one  who  would  recommend  it 
to  the  Church :  c.  190-195  on  Luke,  and  c.  200-220 

*  A  familiar  oath  used  by  German  divines,  ladies,  and  other  persons, 
and  only  less  common  than  the  h ourly -repeated  "  Lord  Jesus."  Tbans, 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE.  17 

on  John."  ^  Now,  on  what  does  this  assertion  rest? 
First :  "  Origen  only  declares  that  Herakleon  was 
accounted  to  be  the  friend  of  Valentine;"  j^age  23. 
Second  :  "  He  was  the  chief  oj^ponent  of  the  school 
of  Valentine,  unknown  even  to  Irenaeus;"  page  210. 
Third :  "  This  is  confirmed  by  Epiphanius  because 
diadb'xetcu,  in  his  language,  only  refers  to  the  fact 
that  the  Half-Valentinians  are  followed  in  chap.  41 
by  the  founder  of  Marcionitism  in  this,  my  Pana- 
rion  of  all  heresies."  But  with  all  this,  he  has 
sought  in  vain  to  falsify  history.  Following  the 
lead  of  Dr.  Lipsius,^  Avhose  heresiological  investi- 
gations Volkmar  boasts  that  he  has  only  continued 
with  the  greatest  satisfaction  to  himself,  he  over- 
looks the  passage  in  Irenaeus,  Book  ii.  ch.  4  (not 
alluded  to  ^  in  the  index  indeed),  where  Herakleon 
and  Ptolemy  are  distinctly  mentioned  as  well- 
known  personages.  Having  made  this  unfortunate 
oversight,  he  advances  confidently  to  weaken  the 
force  of  yvojQifiog  in  Origen,  to  explain  the  diadtjerai 
of  Epiphanius  in  a  joking  fashion,  and,  lastly,  to 
unearth  in  the  ttjrsixcoaav  of  Hippolytus  a  contempo- 
rary of  Hippolytus  between  200  and  220.  Celsus 
encountered  a  similar  fate.  Respecting  him,  Volk- 
mar writes,  page  80  : "  Of  Celsus's  work,  it  is  noto- 
rious that  it  manifested  acquaintance  not  only  with 
the  canonical,  but  with  the  apocryphal  Gospels, 
and  more  particularly  with  that  of  John."  "  It  is 
quite  another  matter  to  determine  the  epoch  of 
Celsus."  "  Celsus  wrote  his  book  about  the  middle 
2 


18  AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 

\ 

of  the  second  century."  "Does  not  Origen  say,  at 
the  close  of  his  work,  8 :  76,  that  this  Celsus  an- 
nounced that  he  was  intending  to  put  forth  another 
writing  of  positive  character,  and  that  we  must 
wait  to  see  whether  he  should  accomplish  his  j^ur- 
pose  ?  Does  not  this  look  as  if  he  were  a  contem- 
porary of  Origen's  ?  .  .  .What  Baurhas  incontesta- 
bly  demonstrated,  that  the  New  Platonist  opponent 
of  Origen  was  contemporaneous  with  him,  is  not 
simply  ignored  by  this  Tischendorf,  the  aj^pealer 
f o  the  ignorant  multitude ;  it  is  absolutely  unknown 
to.  him."  But  the  argument  brought  forward  by 
Volkmar  rests  on  nothing  less  than  a  falsification 
of  the  words  of  Origen ;  yet  such  a  step  could  only 
be  taken  by  a  scholar  of  his  rare  attainments,  who 
had  neglected  to  read  what  Origen  says  expressly 
with  regard  to  Celsus,  that  "he  had  long  been 
dead."  In  both  cases,  therefore,  in  that  of  Celsus 
as  well  as  in  that  of  Herakleon,  there  must  be  a 
choice  in  the  means  of  cure ;  at  any  rate,  to  those 
which  have  been  applied  there  must  also  be  joined 
the  excision  of  the  passage  in  Irenseus  and  Origen. 
And  is  it  not  possible  that  the  same  Old  Catholic 
critic  (found  out  by  Ritschl)  who  had  jDartly  in- 
vented and  partly  interjoolated  Ignatius's  letters 
and  those  bearing  his  name,  and  who  at  the  same 
time  tricked  out  the  Epistle  of  Polycarp  with  pas- 
sages from  Ignatius  and  Ignatius's  Ejjistles,  may 
have  had  his  hand  in  this  matter  as  well  ? 

That  which  personally  touches  me  in  these  out- 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.  19 

pourings  of  theological  bitterness  is  of  very  little 
consequence  compared  with  two  other  elements  of 
the  document  under  consideration,  —  the  frivolous 
tone  of  its  scientific  pretensions  and  the  treachery 
to  the  church  which  it  displays.  For  my  own 
part,  I  can  only  hold  it  as  an  honor  to  thoroughly 
displease  such  men ;  and  that  my  work  has  not  en- 
tirely failed  in  reaching  its  mark,  is  proved  to  me 
in  no  more  efiective  way  than  by  the  calumnious 
assaults  which  are  made  upon  it ;  and  so  far  as  they 
have  tried  to  blacken  over  what  I  have  done,  I 
freely  pardon  them,  so  far  as  roughness  and  want 
of  understanding  are  concerned :  there  would  be  a 
valid  token  that  I  had  failed  in  what  I  proposed  were 
I  not  the  target  for  the  unthankfulness  of  mockers. 
But  for  the  falseness  which  treads  church  and 
knowledge  alike  under  foot;  for  that  hypocritical 
fiivolousness,  which  degracles  the  church  into  a 
mere  seminary  for  the  propagation  of  untruth,  and 
elevates  pure  figments  of  the  brain  to  the  rank  of 
apostohcal  inheritances,  I  have  nothing  but  a  cry 
of  pain  and  of  horror. 

Only  a  few  words  regarding  the  new  edition  of 
my  work.  The  first  edition,  published  in  March, 
1865,  was  followed  in  May  by  the  second;  the  third 
aimed  at  a  greater  popularizing  of  the  subject,  and 
was  accompanied  by  an  historical  sketch  of  my 
travels  and  researches.^  It  now  seems  advisable 
to  add  many  details  to  that  edition,  and  to  make 
an  eflfort  to  make  the  work  more  complete  and 


20  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

valuable.  To  do  this,  I  have  more  than  doubled 
the  amount  of  matter.  Of  course  it  has  been  my 
wish,  in  doing  this,  not  to  injure  the  work,  so  far 
as  its  tone  is  suited  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  gene- 
ral world  of  culture,  although  it  is  hard  to  produce 
a  book  for  this  class,  and  at  the  same  time  to  adapt 
it  to  the  wants  of  special  sudents.  I  must  beg  the 
reader's  indulgence,  should  I  be  found  at  times  to 
have  given  one  body  of  readers  undue  advantage 
over  another.  I  have  written  nothing  which  I  am 
not  prepared  fully  to  defend.  And  may  the  bless- 
ing of  God  not  be  wanting  to  my  little  work  in 
its  new  form. 

TISCHENDORF. 

Leipzig,  July  1, 1866.    - 


CONTENTS. 


The  Gospels  our  sources  for  the  life  of  Jesus :  treatment  of 
them  by  Renan,  23-31.  Importance  of  the  historical  witnesses 
for  the  Gospels,  32-34.  Evidence  from  the  last  decades  of  the 
second  century  :  Irenaeus,  TertuUian,  Clemens  of  Alexandria, 
the  canon  of  Muratori,  the  oldest  Latin  and  Syriac  translation, 
34-37.  Shortly  before  Irenaeus  :  Theophilus  and  Tatian,  Clau- 
dius Apollinaris,  Dionysius  of  Corinth,  Athenagoras,  38-51. 
First  and  fourth  quarters  of  the  second  ceiitury :  Clemens  of 
Rome,  Ignatius,  and  Polycai-p,  52-Gl.  Justin  and  the  Epistle  to 
Diognetus,  61-77.  The  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  78.  The  litera- 
ture of  heresy  before  and  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century  : 
Ptolemy,  Herakleon,  Basilides,  the  Naasenians  (Ophites),  and 
Perates,  79-102.  Marcion,  102-115.  Montanism  and  the  Alo- 
gians;  116-123.  Celsus  vs.  Christianity,  124-130.  The  New 
Testament  apocryphal  literature  :  the  Protevangel  ;  the  Acts  of 
Pilate  ;  the  Gospel  of  Infancy,  130-152.  The  pseudo-Clemen- 
tines, 153.  Barnjibas,  154-100.  When  and  how  to  come  to  a 
decision  regarding  the  four  Gospels,  106-171.  The  testimony 
of  Papias  ;  that  in  the  Vatican  prologue  to  John  ;  that  of  the 

21 


22  CONTENTS. 

presbyters,  in  support  of  John,  171-200.  New  Testament  textual 
criticism,  201-209.  Its  evidence  as  to  a  lost  form  of  Matthew 
and  Mark,  209-211 .  The  text  of  the  second  century  jDresupposes 
a  full  history  of  the  canon,  and  gives  evidence  of  its  existence 
at  about  the  close  of  the  first  century,  211-213.  Evidence  omit- 
ted :  second  Peter,  the  closing  verses  of  John's  Gospel,  the  Tes- 
taments of  the  twelve  patriarchs,  213-215.  Misunderstandings 
and  hypotheses  regarding  the  Gospel  of  John,  215,  216.  Con- 
cluding remarks,  216-219. 


OEIGIN  OP  THE  FOUE  GOSPELS. 


o'i^c 


f^f  HE  life  of  Jesus  has  become  the  center 
^y  of  the  religious  controversies  which  agi- 
^K)  tate  our  age.  The  importance  of  this 
fact  is  great.  At  its  foundation  lies  the 
confession  that  Christianity  is  not  grounded  so 
much  on  the  doctrines  of  Him  from  whom  it 
receives  its  name  as  upon  his  person.  Every 
acceptation  of  the  word  Christianity  which  is 
antagonistic  to  this  confession,  disowns  the  real 
character  of  the  term,  and  rests  on  a  misconcep- 
tion. The  person  of  Jesus  is  the  corner-stone 
on  which  the  church  bases  its  foundations  ;  to 
it  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  and  of  his  disciples 
always  and  with  the  utmost  distinctness  points ; 
with  the  person  of  Jesus  Christianity  stands  or 
falls.     To  rob  this  person  of  his  greatness,  — 

23 


< 


24  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR   GOSPELS. 

of  that  greatness  which  the  eiitira  church  as- 
cribes to  him  under  the  name  Son  of  God,  — 
and  yet  to  think  to  retain  the  Christian  faith 
and  the  Cliristian  church,  is  a  futile  attempt,  a 
vain  mockery.  Even  the  morality  which  some 
might  hope  to  rescue  from  the  general  ship- 
wreck of  faith  is  weakened  by  the  unavoidable 
and  remorseless  contradictions  which  arise  ; 
for  if  the  morality  is  sound,  it  must  be  a  good 
tree  growing  from  a  diseased  root.  The  life  of 
Jesus  is  the  most  momentous  of  all  questions 
which  the  church  has  to  encounter,  —  the  one 
which  is  decisive  whether  it  shall  or  shall  not 
live. 

Whence  do  we  derive  our  knowledge  of  the 
life  of  Jesus  ?  Almost  exclusively  from  our 
four  Gospels,  in  which  the  divine  person  of  Je- 
sus, the  center  of  the  Christian  belief,  and  the 
main  object  too  of  all  attacks  upon  it,  is  pre- 
sented in  essentially  the  same  light  as  in  the 
Epistles  of  Paul,  unquestionably  the  oldest  of 
all  the  apostolical  documents.  All  else  that 
we  know  of  him  is  confined  to  a  few  expres- 
sions and  acts,  and,  with  unimportant  excep- 


TESTIMONY   OF    TACITUS   AND   PLINY.  25 

tioiis,  is  ill  direct  connection  with,  and  depend- 
ence  on,   the   Gospels.     By   far  the  most  of 
these  sources  are  to  be  found  in  apocryphal, 
i.e.  not  genuine,  untrustworthy  fragments,  not 
bearing  the  true  names  of  their  authors,  and 
aiming  with  more  or  less  skill  to  supplement 
and   complete    the   gospel    narrative ;    others, 
partly  of  Jewish  and  partly  of  heathen  origin, 
avow  at  the  very  outset  the  intention  of  assail- 
ing the  Gospels.     Finally,  we  possess  in  two 
classic  writers  of  the  first  and  the  two  follow- 
ing centuries,  Tacitus  and  Pliny,  a  few  inci- 
dental expressions  which  have  a  lasting  inter- 
est: thefirst^  testifying  that  Christ,  the  founder 
of  the  rehgion  which  had  gained  so  strong  a 
hold  even  in  Nero's  time,  had  been  punished 
with   death  by  the   procurator   Pontius  Pilate 
during  the  reign  of  Tiberius ;  while  Pliny  as- 
serts"^ in  a  communication  to  Trajan  that  the 
Christians,  already  a  numerous  body  in  Bithy- 
nia,   were   in   the   habit   of  singing  songs  of 
praise   to    Christ   as  to  a  God.«    Our  Gospels 
therefore,  if  not  tlie    only  authorities   relative 
to  the  life  of  Jesus,  are  by  all  odds  the  most 


26  ORIGIN  OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

important  ones,  and  the  only  direct  sources 
that  are  in  existence.  If  then  the  life  of  Je- 
sus is  only  made  known  to  us  by  the  Gospels, 
if  we  are  directed  to  these  books  for  the  solu- 
tion of  all  our  questions  about  the  birth,  the 
activities,  the  conversation,  character,  and  for- 
tunes of  Jesus,  we  have  of  course  no  less 
weighty  an  inquiry  before  us  than  this.  Whence 
spring  our  Grospels  ?  For  upon  the  origin  of 
these  books  hinge  their  trustworthiness  and 
all  their  value. 

So  much  depending  upon  this  first  step,  very 
many  are  the  investigations  which  have  been 
made  in  tliese  modern  times  into  the  origin  of 
the  Gospels.  It  has  been  a  question  with  what 
justice  the  names  of  those  prominent  members 
of  the  twelve,  Matthew  and  John,  and  the 
names  of  the  helpers  and  followers,  Mark  and 
Luke,  have  been  assigned  to  the  four  Gospels. 
Just  so  far  as  the  authorship  of  these  docu- 
ments has  been  admitted^ as  due  to  those  re- 
vered men,  the  Gospels  have  been  accepted  as 
authentic  and  trustworthy  records  of  the  life 
of  the  Lord.     Their  names  have  been  regarded 


RENAN'S  LIFE    OF  JESUS.  27 

as  a  satisfactory  guaranty  that,  in  the  writings 
with  which  they  were  coupled,  truth  only  could 
be  sought,  that  in  them  truth  only  was  wished, 
and  that  in  them  truth  was  authentically  re- 
corded.    There  is  indeed  another  way  of  test- 
ing the  reliability  of  the  Gospels.     After  the 
rise  of  the  rationalizing  or  rationalistic  spirit, 
and  when  the   attempt  was  made  to  set  the 
reason   of    man   above  everything  which  had 
previously  borne  the  name  of  Divine  Revela- 
tion, hands  were  laid  at  once  on  the  biblical 
miracles,  and  it  was  claimed  that  they  must  be 
explained  by  the  light  of  the  imperfect  culture 
of  that  time,  and  the  incorrect  appreciation  of 
the  Old  Testament.     Out  of  this  grew  the  the- 
ory of  accommodation,  as  it  was  called,  which 
asserted  that  Jesus  made  his  words  chime  in 
with  the  expectations  of  his  age,  and  that  he 
gave  himself  out  to  be  a  more  important  per- 
sonage than  he  really  was.     This  theory  of  the 
rise  of  the  Gospels  has  culminated  in  the  piece 
of  botchwork  which  issued  from  the  Paris  press 
in  1863.     The  author  of  that  book,  not  troub- 
ling himself  with  any  speculations  respecting 


28        ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  share  which  the  apostles  may  have  had  in 
delineating  the  gospel  portraits,  but  following 
his  own  self-imposed  theories  about  miracles 
and  revelation,  has  displayed  boundless  reck- 
lessness and  given  way  to  the  most  unbridled 
phantasies  respecting  the  gospel  history,  cari- 
caturing both  it  and  its  hero.  He  has  written 
a  book  which  has  much  more  the  character  of 
a  shameless  calumny  of  Jesus  than  of  an  hon- 
est investigation  into  his  career.  Can  we  ap- 
ply the  term  historical  inquiry  to  an  attempt 
to  show^  that  John  wrote  the  foui-th  Gospel 
out  of  a  spirit  of  self-love,  not  without  jeal- 
ousy of  Peter, ^1  and  full  of  hatred  to  Judas 
Iscariot  ?  ^^  Can  we  dignify  by  so  high  a  term 
as  scientific  investigation  such  a  theory  as  his 
respecting  the  cause  of  the  sympathy  felt  for 
Jesus  by  the  wife  of  Pilate,  that  she  saw  the 
"  gentle  Galilean,"  the  "  fine-looking  young 
man,"  from  a  window  of  the  palace  that  looked 
out  on  the  temple-court,  and  that  in  conse- 
quence the  thought  that  his  blood  was  to  be 
spilled  rested  like  a  mountain  load  upon  her 
soul  ?  ^^    To  cite  one  or  two  more  examples  of  his 


RE  NAN'S  LIFE    OF  JESUS.  29 

mode  of  dealing  with  the  Gospels,  what  shaU 
we  say  of  his  manner  of  treating  the  raising  of 
Lazarus,  where  lie  endeavors  to  show  that  Je- 
sus, whose  role  was  becoming  more  and  more 
difficult  every  day,  practiced  an  involuntary 
piece  of  deception  upon  the  people  and  the  cred- 
ulous sisters  of  Lazarus  ?  His  theory  is  that 
the  latter,  while  still  sick,  caused  himself  to  be 
^laid  out  for  burial,  and  deposited  in  the  fam- 
ily vault ;  that  Jesus,  wishing  to  see  his  friend 
once  more,  caused  the  tomb  to  be  opened,  and 
on  seeing  Lazarus  come  forth  was  himself  led 
to  believe  that  the  dead  man  had  come  to  life 
again, —  the  power  of  resuscitating  him,  mean- 
while, being  ascribed  by  the  witnesses  to  the 
wonderful  gifts  of  Jesus.^^  Or  what  shall  we  say 
of  a  theory  of  the  conflict  in  Gethsemane,^* 
which  seeks  to  throw  light  on  the  Saviour's  grief 
by  such  words  as  these  :  "  Perhaps  his  thoughts 
were  running  back  ix>  the  clear  springs  of  Gali- 
lee where  he  had  often  found  refreshment,  to  the 
vine-stock  and  the  fig-tree  beneath  whose  shade 
he  had  rested,  to  the  young  maidens  who  it  may 
be  had  responded  to  his  love.     Did  he  curse 


30       ORIGIN  OF   THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

« 

his  hard  fate,  which  denied  him  all  the  old  joys 
of  his  life  ?  Did  he  lament  his  high  call,  and 
weep,  a  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of  his  own  great- 
ness, that  he  had  not  continued  to  be  a  simple 
Nazarene  artisan  ?  "  ^^  What  shall  we  think  of 
the  supposition  that  the  dreary  landscape  of 
Judaea  —  with  Jerusalem,  the  sacred  center 
of  the  Jewish  faith  and  worship  —  drove  the 
thoughts  of  the  Galilean  to  the  luxuriance  of 
his  own  country's  hills,  and  added  to  his  grief  ?^® 
Wliat  shall  we  say  of  his  exclamation,  that 
if  a  better  understanding  of  Christianity  is  to 
prevail  among  men,  and  the  apocryphal  shrines 
which  now  claim  veneration  are  to  be  super- 
seded by  authentic  ones,  the  temple,  the  great 
church  for  all  Christians,  is  to  be  built  upon 
the  hill  of  Nazareth,  —  the  soil  beneath  which 
are  sleeping  the  carpenter  Joseph  and  thou- 
sands of  Nazarenes  ?  ^'  What  shall  we  say  to  the 
crudest  of  all  Kenan's  vagaries,  the  investing 
with  the  crown  of  immortality  and  the  glitter- 
ing halo  of  a  saint  the  head  of  that  Jew  dying 
on  the  cross,  at  the  outset  a  mere  kindly  poeti- 
cal enthusiast,  and  at  last  an  idolizing  fanatic, 


GERMAN  SUPPORTERS   OF  RE  NAN.  31 

involved  irretrievably  with  the  dominant  party, 
and  rushing  willingly  into  the  arms  of  death  ?^^ 

Surely  it  requires  no  further  citations  to  jus- 
tify the  expression  of  a  condemnation  of  Ke- 
nan's book :  these  few  instances  are  sufficient 
10  put  the  reader  in  possession  of  materials  ade- 
quate to  enable  him  to  judge  of  the  character 
of  the  work.  That,  in  spite  of  its  frivolous  pre- 
tenses to  science,  in  spite  of  its  fantastic  carica- 
tures of  history,  it  has  found  such  favor  and 
endorsement  in  Germany,  only  shows  how 
widely  are  diffused,  even  in  Germany,  the  lack 
of  sound  criticism,  and  of  acquaintance  with 
biblical  history,  as  well  as  the  depraved  taste  of 
an  age  which  is  sunk  in  unbelief. 

In  this  matter,  German  science  and  schol- 
arship have  subjected  themselves  to  a  severe 
reproach.  Not  only  is  the  prevalent  rational- 
ism, which  places  our  common  human  reason 
above  a  divine  revelation,  and  so  sets  aside  the 
supernatural  claims  of  the  Gospels,  a  product 
of  this  French  book,  but  German  zeal  is  aroused, 
as  well,  to  supply  what  is  lacking  of  scientific 
accuracy  in  Kenan's  work,  and  to  make  his 


32  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

results  more  trustwortlij.  And  so  we  have 
one  of  the  frightful  spectacles  of  our  time, — 
French  levity  and  German  learning  reaching 
brotherly  hands  to  each  other  over  the  fresl^ 
grave  of  the  Saviour.  Unbelief,  it  would  seem, 
gives  even  more  strength  than  belief. 

In  those  quarters  where  regard  is  paid  to 
historical  authority,  one  of  the  points  brought 
into  the  foreground  in  the  attacks  upon  the 
authenticity  of  the  Gospels,  is  the  lack  of  early 
evidence  that  they  were  in  existence  at  the 
opening  of  the  Christian  era.  Nor  can  any  one 
deny  that  this  objection,  if  it  can  be  maintained, 
is  entitled  to  much  weight.  If  it  is  as  late  as  the 
year  150,  or  still  later,  that  we  receive  the  first 
tidings  about  John's  Gospel,  who  would  not 
find  it  hard  to  believe  that  it  was  written  by 
the  beloved  disciple  of  the  Lord  a  half  century 
before  ?  If  there  is  not  in  our  possession  evi- 
dence in  support  of  the  other  Gospels  dating 
from  that  time,  or  from  the  years  just  preceding 
it,  who  can  deny  that  it  does  not  raise  doubts 
respecting  their  authenticity  ?  It  is  true,  we 
must  take  into  account  the  paucity  of  the  liter- 


IMPOIiTANCE    OF   OVERTIIIIOWING    THEM.        33 

atiire  which  comes  down  to  us  from  the  earlier 
epoch  of  the  church  ;  and  besides,  many  a  good 
book  might  have  been  written  without  verbally 
incorporating  or  directly  using  our  Gospels ; 
especially  at  a  time  when  those  who  had  been 
eye-witnesses  had  not  been  long  dead ;  when 
the  life  of  the  churches  was  directly  sustained 
by  the  spirit  of  the  Gospels  ;  and  when  the  writ- 
ten letter  had  not  begun  to  be  dominant  over 
the  living  evangel.  If  these  considerations 
diminish  the  importance  which  might  be  at- 
tached to  the  absence  of  biblical  quotations  in 
tlie  primitive  Christian  literature,  yet  it  is 
clear,  on  the  other  hand,  that  if  such  quota- 
tions are  really  to  be  found  there,  the  manifest 
acquaintance  wdiich  they  might  show  that  men 
had  with  the  Gospels  in  the  first  half  of  the  sec- 
ond century  must  be  of  the  greatest  weight  in 
establishing  their  ago,  their  apostolical  origin, 
and  their  genuineness.  And  therefore  it  is  a 
sacred  duty  that  those  who  would  subject  tlie 
authenticity  of  our  Gospels  to  a  thorough  scru- 
tiny, should  make  one  of  their  chief  duties  a 
most  careful  investigation  into  the  most  ancient 

3 


34  ORIGIX   OF    THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

sources  of  testimony  respecting  the  existence 
and  the  recognized  credibility  of  the  records  of 
Jesus'  life. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  duty  has  been  hy  no 
means  faitlifully  enough  met  for  the  first  three 
so-called  synoptical  Gospels,  and  still  less  for 
that  of  John,  whose  want  of  authenticity  has 
been  inscribed  in  flaming  letters  upon  the  ban- 
ners of  the  negative  school.  The  writer  of 
these  lines  imposes  upon  himself  the  task  of 
trying  to  throw  some  light  upon  the  authority 
of  the  evangelical  documents,  although  in  pre- 
paring the  work  not  for  special  students,  but 
cultivated  Christians  generally,  it  may  not  be 
possible  to  enter  so  exhaustively  into  the  subject 
as  under  other  circumstances  might  be  desir- 
able. 

We  can  make  as  our  starting-point  the  un- 
questioned fact  that  in  the  last  decades  of  the 
second  century  our  four  Gospels  were  known 
and  acknowledged  in  all  portions  of  the  church. 
Irenseus,  from  ITT  on,  Bishop  of  Lyons,  where 
the  first  Christian  church  of  Gaul  was  estab- 
lished, wrote  a  great  work  in  the  last  decades 


EARLY    QUOTATIONS.  35 

of  the  second  century,  directed  at  the  earliest 
heresies,  the  Gnostic,  and  on  every  page  made 
use  of  the  Gospels,  providing  liimself  from  them 
with   materials   to   overthrow  a  system   which 
was  threatening  to  destroy  the  doctrines  of  the 
church.     The   number   of  passages   where   he 
has  recourse  to  the  Gospels  is  about  four  hun- 
dred, and  about  eighty  of  these  contain  quota- 
tions from  John.     From"  the  closing  decade  of 
the  second  century  on,  the  able  and  learned 
TertuUian  lived  and  labored   at   Carthage,  iu 
Africa,   and   in    his   numerous   writings   there 
exist  hundreds  of  citations  from  the  text  of  the 
Gospels,  which  he  made  use  of  as  his  most  deci- 
sive authorities.     The  same  is  true  of  Clemens, 
the  celebrated  teacher  in  the  scliool  of  catechu- 
mens at  Alexandria,  about  the  end  of  the  sec- 
ond century.     Nor  must  I  fall  to  allude  to  a 
catalogue,  generally  known  by  the  name  of  its 
discoverer,  the  Italian  scliolar,  Muratori,  of  all 
tlie  books  which  were  regarded  as  canonical  in 
ihe  very  earliest  times.     This  work  was  prob- 
ably prepared  at  Rome,  and  shortly  after  the 
time  of  the  Roman   bishop  Pius,   i.  e.   some- 


36        ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

where  between  160  and  170.  In  tliis  catalogue 
of  the  books  thus  reckoned  as  comprising  the 
New  Testament,  the  four  Gospels  are  at  the 
liead.^^  It  is  true,  the  first  few  lines  which  re- 
late to  Matthew  and  Mark  have  been  lost ;  but, 
at  tlie  close  of  the  still  extant  words  respecting 
the  latter,  the  Gospel  of  Luke  is  spoken  of  as  the 
third,  and  that  of  John  as  the  fourth  ;  enabling 
us  to  see  that  even  m  tlie  very  earliest  days-  the 
order  was  followed  with  which  we  are  sp  famil-- 
iar. 

I  have  thus  summoned  witnesses  from  Gaul, 
from  proconsular  Africa  (the  present  Algiers), 
from  Alexandria,  and  from  Rome.  Two  others 
can  be  cited  fitly  here,  although  one  of  tliem 
goes  back  to  a  remoter  date  :  I  mean  tlie  two 
oldest  translations  from  the  Greek  text  used  by 
tlie  apostles  themselves.  One  of  these  is  the 
Syriac  version,  and  bears  the  name  Peshito ; 
the  other  is  the  Latin  version,  known  under  the 
title  Itala :  both  of  them  give  tiie  four  Gospels 
the  first  place.  The  canonical  acceptance  of  all 
four  must  unquestionably  have  been  general,  as 
we  see  that  they  were  transferred  openly,  and 


EARLY    TRANSLATIONS    OF    THE    GOSPELS.       37 

as  a  whole,  into  the  language  of  the  newly-con- 
\ferted  Christians,  the  Latins  and  Syrians. 
The  Syriac  translation,  which  takes  us  to  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Euphrates,  is  almost  uni- 
versally assigned  to  the  end  of  the  second  cen 
tury ;  and,  although  positive  proofs  arc  wanting 
in  support  of  this  date,  yet  we  are  not  without 
good  grounds  for  accepting  it.  The  Latin  ver- 
sion, on  the  contrary,  liad  begun  to  gain  gen- 
eral reco2;nition  even  before  the  end  of  the  sec- 
.  ond  century  ;  for  both  Tertullian,  in  his  quota- 
tions from  Irenasus,  and  the  Latin  translator  of 
Irenaeus's  great  work  against  heresy,  writing 
about  the  end  of  the  second  century,  make  use 
of  the  text  of  the  Itala.  This,  of  course,  im- 
plies that  tlie  Latin  trandation  was  made  some 
years  before  tlie  close  of  the  second  century.  I 
shall  have  occasion  subsequently  to  allude  again 
to  the  striking  fact  that  it  was  necessary  to 
translate  the  Gospels  into  Latin  and  Syriac  as 
early  as  the  second  lialf  of  tlio  second  century, 
and  that  tlie  number  of  documents  was  limited 
to  the  four  with  wdiich  w^e  are  now  familiar. 
Looking  a  little  more  closely  into  the  testi- 


38        ORIGIN    OF    THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

mony  of  the  two  great  Fathers,  IreuaBus  and 
TertuUian,  we  have  to  ask,  Can  thek  evidence 
be  so  limited  in  its  application  as  to  only  prove 
that  the  four  Gospels  were  fully  accepted  in  their 
day  ?  Irenaeus  not  merely  invests  these  docu- 
ments with  entire  authority  in  the  citations 
which  he  makes  to  overthrow  the  Gnostic  here- 
tics ;  it  even  appears  in  his  work  that  the  Gos- 
pels, or  rather,  to  use  his  own  expression,  the 
fourfoldncss  of  the  Gospel,  has  been  conformed 
to  the  analogy  of  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe, 
the  four  chief  winds,  the  four  faces  of  the  cher- 
ubim. He  asserts  that  the  four  Gospels  are  the 
four  pillars  on  which  the  cliurch  rests  as  it  cov- 
ers the  whole  earth,  and  in  this  number  four 
he  recognizes  a  special  token  of  the  Creator's 
wisdom.^*^  Is  such  a  representation  compatible 
Avith  the  fact  tliat  at  the  time  of  Irenaeus  the 
four  Gospels  first  began  to  be  accepted  ?  or 
that  an  attempt  was  then  being  made  to  append 
a  fourth  and  newer  one  to  the  three  older  ones 
then  current?  Is  it  not  mucli  more  credible 
that  the  acceptance  of  all  tlie  four  was  then  of 
so  long  standing  &nd  so  thoroughly  complete, 


inEXjEUS'/i    TESTIMONY.  39 

that  the  Bishop  of  Lyons  could  allude  to  the 
fourfolduess  of  the  Gof^pel  as  a  thing  universally 
recognized,  and  i.i  consequence  of  this  very  re- 
cognition speak  of  it  as  a  thing  which  harmo- 
nizes with  great  a:ul  uiicliaiiging  cosmical  rela- 
tions ?  Irencsus  died  in  the  second  year  after 
the  close  of  the  second  century,  but  in  his  youth 
he  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  tlie  venerable  Poly- 
carp,  who  had  been  a  disciple  of  John  the  evan- 
gelist, and  had  been  acquainted  with  many  eye- 
witnesses of  Jesus'  lii'e.  In  mentioning  thi^ 
factlrenaeus -^  alludes  very  tenderly  to  the  state- 
ment of  his  revered  teacher  Polycarp,  that  all 
that  he  had  heard  from  the  lips  of  John  and 
other  disciples  of  Jesus  coincided  fully  vv^th  the 
written  account.  Yet  let  us  hear  his  own  words 
as  given  in  a  letter  to  Florinus :  "  I  saw  you 
while  I  was  yet  a  youth  in  Lower  Asia  with 
Polycarp,  when  you  were  living  in  scenes  of 
princely  splendor,  and  wlien  you  were  striving 
to  gain  the  approval  of  Polycarp.  What  took 
place  then  is  fresher  in  my  memory  than  wliat 
has  occurred  more  recently.  What  we  took  in 
in  our  youth  grows  up  as  it 'were  with  us,  and 


40       ORIGIN    OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

is  incorporated  in  us.  And  so  I  can  even  now 
bring  back  to  mind  just  tlis  place  wliero  the 
good  Polycarp  used  to  sit  ^Yllen  he  talked  to  us, 
how  he  looked  as  he  came  in  and  as  lie  went 
out,  liow  lie  lived,  how  he  used  to  speak  to  the 
people,  how  he  used  to  allude  to  his  intercourse 
with  John  and  repeat  the  words  of  others  who 
had  seen  the  Lord,  how  he  used  to  recount 
what  he  had  heard  from  their  own  lips  about 
the  miracles  and  the  teachings  of  the  Lord, — 
and  all  in  full  accordance  witli  the  written  nar- 
rative." -- 

Thus  writes  Iren^eus  respecting  his  inter- 
course with  Polycarp  and  respecting  the  com- 
munications of  Polycarp.  The  date  of  the  young 
L^enaeus's  intercourse  with  the  aged  saint  must 
be  set  approximately  at  about  the  year  150.  Ire- 
nseus  died  in  202,  according  to  old  accounts  a 
martyr,  while  Polycai'p  perished  at  the  stake  in 
1G5,  "  after  having,''  to  use  liis  own  expression, 
''  served  the  Lord  eighty-six  years."  And  is  it 
to  be  believed  that  Ircnaeus  never  heard  from 
his  teacher,  whose  communications  respecting 
John  he  expressly  refers  to,  one  word  regarding 


POLYCARP'S    TESTIMONY.  41 

the  Gospel  of  John  ?  Indisputably  one  part 
of  Poljcarp's  testimony  relative  to  John's  Gos- 
pel carries  us  back  to  John  himself.  For  Poly- 
carp's  evidence  respecting  the  work  of  his 
teacher  must  be  based  upon  the  testimony  of 
his  teacher  himself.  The  case  becomes  all  th'e 
more  clear  the  more  closely  we  look  into  it  on 
the  adversaries'  side,  and  rango  ourselves  with 
those  who  deny  the  validity  of  John's  Gospel. 
According  to  this  view,  Polycarp,  although  say- 
ing so  much  to  Irenseus  regarding  John,  did 
not  drop  a  word  regarding  the  Gospel  of  John. 
But  supposing  he  did  not,  is  it  credible  that 
Irenteus  fally  accepted  that  Gospel,  tliat  work 
which  seemed  to  be  the  noblest  gift  of  John  to 
Christianity,  the  report  of  an  eye-witness  re- 
specting the  lifj,  death,  and  resurrection  of  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  as  a  Gospel  whicii  ran  di- 
rectly counter  to  the  testimony  of  the  three 
other  evangelists?  ^Vould  not  the  very  cir- 
cumstance that  Polycarp  made  no  mention  of 
it  have  convinced  Irenasus  of  its  want  of  au- 
thenticity? And  yet  it  is  asserted  that  in  order 
to  meet  and  overthrow  false  teachers,  and  the 


42  ORIGIN   OF    THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

men  who  falsified  the  canon,  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  reckon  the  Gospel  of  John  as  strictly  em- 
braced among  the  sacred  books. 

This  on  which  I  am  now  laying  stress  is 
nothing  new  ;  it  has  loDg  stood  recorded  on  the 
pages  of  Irenaeus,  and  has  long  been  read  there. 
But  it  has  not  had  its  due  weight ;  else  how 
could  it  have  been  so  liglitly  passed  over  ?  For 
my  own  part  I  must  completely  justify  the  as- 
signing of  much  greater  weight,  on  the  part  of 
correct  and  thorough  investigators,  to  the  testi- 
mony of  Polycarp  and  Tremens  respecting  the 
Gospel  of  John,  than  to  all  the  difficulties  and 
all  the  objections  urged  by  skeptical  scholars. 

And  is  the  case  not  similar  with  Tertullian 
and  his  testimony  respecting  the  Gospel  ?  This 
man,  who  liad  been  transformed  from  a  worldly 
heathen  lawyer  into  a  powerful  advocate  of 
divine  truth,  enters  so  critically  into  the  ques- 
tion of  the  origin  and  relative  value  of  the 
four  Gospels  as  expressly  to  subordinate  Mark 
and  Luke  to  Matthew  and  John,  on  the  ground 
that  the  former  were  mere  helpers  and  compan- 
ions of  the  apostles,  while  the  latter  were  so- 


TERTULLIAN'S    TESTIMOyY.  43 

lected  by  the  Lord  liimself  and  invested  with 
full  authority.^^  The  same  author  propounds 
also  an  inexpugnable  canon  of  historical  criti- 
cism, a  test  of  the  truth  of  the  early  Christian 
documents,  and  especially  those  of  apostolic 
origin,  in  that  he  makes  the  value  of  testimony 
dependent  on  the  epoch  of  the  witness,  and  de- 
mands that  wliat  was  held  as  true  in  his  day 
should  be  judged  in  the  light  of  its  prior  ac- 
ceptance. If  it  had  been  accepted  before,  it  was 
fair  to  suppose  that  it  had  been  equally  accepted 
in  the  time  of  the  apostles  ;  its  authenticity 
must  therefore  have  been  admitted  by  the  apos- 
tolical church,  founded  as  it  was  by  the  apostles 
themselves.-"*  And  is  it  to  be  believed  that  this 
acute  man  was  capable  of  being  deceived  in  his 
acceptance  of  the  Gospels  and  in  his  defense  of 
them  by  any  thin  web  of  sophistry  or  touch  of 
charlatanism  ?  The  passages  just  referred  to 
are  taken  from  his  celebrated  reply  to  Marcion, 
who  in  a  wanton  and  heretical  spirit  had  im- 
pugned the  authenticity  of  the  Gospels.  Three 
of  the  four  he  had  wholly  excluded,  and  of  the 
fourth  he  retained  only  just  so  much  as  it  pleased 


44       ORIGIN    OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

him  to  do.  In  replying  to  him,  TertuUian  ex- 
pressly bases  his  argument  on  the  ground  that  at 
the  time  when  the  apostolical  church  was  found- 
ed all  the  four  Gospols  were  accredited.  Has 
such  a  statement  no  weii>:lit  in  the  mouth  of  a 
man  like  TertuUian  ?  When  he  wrote,  scarcely 
a  hundred  years  had  elapsed  since  the  death  of 
John.  At  that  date  the  testimony,  appealed 
to  by  him,  of  the  church  at  Ephesus,  in  which 
John  had  labored  so  long  and  amid  which  he 
had  died,  must  have  been  full  and  decisive  re- 
specting the  genuiiieness  or  spuriousness  of 
John's  Gospel.  Nor  was  it  a  matter  of  any 
difficulty  to  ascertain  what  was  the  judgment 
which  this  clmrch  passed  on  the  Gospel.  And 
we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  wo  liave  not 
to  do,  in  this  matter,  with  a  scholar  who  is  con- 
tenting himself  with  merely  learned  investiga- 
tions, but  with  a  man  full  of  earnestness  re- 
specting his  faith,  and  taking  very  seriously  the 
question  of  human  salvation.  The  Christian 
documents  which  asserted  a  connection  between 
themselves  and  the  origin  of  the  new  faith,  the 
documents  at  which  all  the  worldly  wisdom  of 


irenjEUS  and  tertullian:  45 

the  time  in  wliicli  Tertullian  himself  was  reared 
took  offense,  —  were  they  likely  to  be  accepted 
by  him  without  inquiry,  and  in  a  blind  cre- 
dulity ?  And  inasmuch  as  he  expressly  assures 
us  that  he  bases  his  acceptation  of  all  the  four 
Gospels  on  the  credit  of  the  apostolical  church ,--5 
is  it  not  an  unworthy  suspicion,  the  doubting 
that  he  made  thorough  inquiry  into  the  capacity 
of  the  apostolical  church  to  pass  an  authentic 
judgment  on  the  Christian  documents  ? 

I  insist  therefore,  to  sum  up  the  matter,  that 
the  testimony  of  Irenasus  and  Tertullian  re- 
specting the  four  Gospels  is  not  to  be  taken  as 
an  isolated,  unrelated  fact,  but  that  it  must  be 
considered  as  a  valid  result  of  all  the  historical 
evidence  which  was  at  their  command.  And 
how  far  we  are  justified  in  this,  is  shown  not 
only  by  the  authorities  already  adduced,  the 
author  of  the  Muratori  list  of  New  Testament 
books,  the  African  trane-lator  of  the  Gospels 
into  Latin,  the  originator  of  the  Itala,  but  by 
all  the  other  witnesses  who  lived  prior  to  the 
time  of  Ireineus  and  Tertullian. 

Many  of  my  readers  are  acquainted  with  the 


46  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

so-called  Harmonies  of  the  Gospels, — the  works 
ill  which  the  four  sacred  narratives  are  co-ordi- 
nated into  a  single  one.  In  this  way  an  effort 
has  been  made  to  draw  from  the  Gospels  alone 
a  closely  followed  and  faitliful  portrait  of  our 
Lord's  life,  those  points  which  one  narrator  has 
brought  more  prominently  into  view  than  the 
others  being  employed  as  supplementary  to  tlie 
other  accounts,  and  a  complete  picture  being 
the  result.  In  these  works  the  narrative  of 
John  has  been  drawn  upon  to  supply  the  inci- 
dents occurring  in  the  last  three  years  of  Jesus' 
life,  and  to  follow  his  couree  step  by  step. 
Harmonies  of  this  kind  were  prepared  as  early 
as  the  year  170  by  two  men  whose  names  are 
known  to  us :  one  of  them  was  Theophilus, 
Bishop  of  Antioch  in  Syria  ;  the  other  was 
Tatian,  a  disciple  of  Justin  the  great  theologi- 
an and  martyr.-*^  True,  both  of  those  works 
are  lost ;  but  Jerome  speaks  in  the  fourtli  cen- 
tury of  the  one  prepared  by  Theophilus  as  still 
existing,  describing  it  as  a  combination  of  the 
four  Gospels  in  one  continuous  narrative  ;  ^"^  re- 
specting the  second  we  have  the  testimony  of 


EARLY  HAffMONIES.  47 

Eusebius-^  and  Theodoret,-^  the  latter  of  wliom 
speaks  with  intimate  knowledge.  Tatian  him- 
self alludes  to  his  work  as  "  the  Gospel  made 
up  of  four,  the  DiatObsaron."  Both  of  these 
men  wrote  other  works  which  are  still  extant. 
Ill  180  and  1^1  Theophilus  indited  the  three 
books  to  Autolycus,  a  learned  heathen  who  liad 
assailed  Christianity.  In  this  work  are  ex- 
tracts from  Matthew,  Luke,  and  John.  It  is 
especially  noteworthy  that  lie  cites  the  latter 
(ii.  22),  alluding  explicitly  to  the  name  of  the 
author.  His  words  are,  "  This  is  taught  by  the 
Holy  Scriptures  and  all  inspired  men,  among 
whom  is  John,  who  says,  '  In  the  beginning  was 
the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,'  and 
then  follows,  '  and  the  Word  was  God :  all 
things  were  made  by  him,  and  witliout  him 
was  not  anything  made  that  was  made.' " 
This  makes  it  cci-tain  that  the  Harmony  of  The- 
ophilus embraced  the  Gospel  of  Jolm.^*^  The 
same  is  true  of  Tatian :  for  in  his  Addresses  to 
the  Heathen,  a  work  filled  with  learning,  and 
very  decided  in  its  tone,  written  probably  be- 
tween 166  and  170,  there  are  several  passages 


48  ORIGIN   OF    TifE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

quoted  from  Jolin's  Gospel,  such  as  tliis  :  "  The 
Light  shiiieth  in  darkness,  and   the   darkness 

comprehendeth  it  not The  Life  was  the 

Light  of  men All  things  were  made  hy 

him,  and  without  him  was  not  anytliing  made 
that  was  made."  From  this  it  would  seem  cer- 
tain that  his  Harmony,  like  that  of  Theophilus, 
although  it  may  have  taken  some  liberties  with 
the  order  of  the  narrative,  included  the  Gospel 
of  John :  and  this  chimes  admirably  with  the 
statement  of  Bishop  Bar  Salibi,  that  the  Diates- 
saron  of  Tatian,  accompanied  by  a  commentary 
by  Ephraim,  and  thus  discriminated  from  the 
Diatessaron  of  Ammonius,  began  with  the 
words,  ••  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word." 

These  Harmonies  last  mentioned,  one  of  which 
must  with  much  probability  be  ascribed  to  a 
date  within  the  first  sixty  years  of  the  second 
century,  have  far  more  worth  than  what  would 
be  gathered  from  single  scattered  extracts,  for 
their  preparation  points  back  conclusively  to  a 
time  when  the  four  Gospels  were  already  ac- 
cepted as  a  perfect  record,  and  when  the  neces- 
sity had  begun  to  be  felt  of  deducing  a  higher 


CLAUDIUS   APOLLINAUIS.  49 

unity  and  a  more  harmonious  completeness 
from  them  than  the  diversity  of  the  various 
books  and  the  apparent  discrepancies  had  ren- 
dered apparent.  If  these  efforts  are  to  be  as- 
signed to  a  date  as  early  as  the  second  decade 
subsequently  to  the  middle  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, it  makes  the  inference  a  necessary  one 
that  the  use  and  recognition  of  the  four  Gospels 
must  be  assigned  to  a  much  earlier  date. 

Similar  testimony  we  owe  to  a  cotemporary  of 
the  two  men  just  named,  Claudius  Apollinaris^ 
Bishop  of  Hierapolis  in  Phrygia,  whose  epoch 
is  assigned  by  Euscbius  (iv.  26)  to  the  reign  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  For  in  a  fragment  preserved 
in  the  Chronicon  Paschale  he  declares  that  if 
the  Quartodecimanians  (so  called  from  holding 
like  the  Jews  that  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan  was 
the  day  for  celebrating  the  paschal  sacrifice) 
appeal  justly  to  Matthew  in  support  of  the  view 
tliat  Jesus  partook  of  the  last  supper  with  his 
disciples  at  the  precise  time  of  celebrating  the 
paschal  oifering,  there  must  be  an  antagonism 
among  the  writers  of  the  several  Gospels.  Now 
as  in  this  contest  Matthew,  Mark,  and   Luke 

4 


60  ^IGIN   OF    THE   FOUR  GOSPELS. 

must  be  ranged  on  the  one  side,  and  John  on 
the  other,  the  words  of  Apollinaris  indicate 
that  all  the  Gospels  were  conceded  in  his  day 
to  have  equal  value.  To  this  may  be  added 
that  in  one  passage  still  extant  in  the  same 
Chronicon  there  is  undeniable  reference  to 
John's  allusion  (xix.  34)  to  the  piercing  of 
Jesus'  side. 

According  to  Eusebius,  the  choice  of  Diony- 
sius  as  Bishop  of  Corinth  occurred  in  the  year 
170.  The  same  historian  has  preserved  for  us 
(Euseb.  iv.  23)  some  fragments  of  letters  and 
other  documents  from  the  pen  of  Dionysius. 
To  one  church  he  sent  in  the  epistolary  form 
expositions  of  Scripture ;  and  to  the  Romans 
he  wrote,  after  animadverting  severely  upon 
the  efforts  to  discredit  the  genuineness  of  his 
own  letters,  that  it  was  not  at  all  strange  that 
men  sought  to  discredit  the  Gospels,  since  these 
too  were  documents  whose  value  was  so  great 
tliat  their  authenticity  should  be  indisputable. 
The  expression.  Holy  Scriptures,  might  not  ne- 
cessarily refer  to  the  New  Testament ;  but  the 
word  which  Dionysius  employs  —  writings  re- 


ATHENAGORAS'S   APOLOGY.  51 

Bpectiiig  the  Lord, —  the  same  term  which  Clem- 
ens of  Alexandria  uses  (Strom,  vii.  1) — has 
the  same  signification  with  the  expression  New 
Testament,  and  relates  evidently  to  the  books 
which  were  then  accepted  as  constituting  the 
New  Testament  canon. 

The  Apology  written  by  Athenagoras  of  Ath- 
ens, in  the  year  177,  contains  several  quota- 
tions from  Matthew  and  Luke  ;  it  displays  also 
unmistakable  marks  of  being  influenced  by 
John's  Gospel;  as,  for  example,  in  the  passages 
which  speak  of  the  Logos  as  the  Word  of  God, 
and  which  allude  to  the  Son  of  God  who  is  in 
the  Father  as  the  Father  is  in  the  Son.  It  con- 
tains the  very  expression  found  in  the  first 
chapter  of  John,  third  verse,  "  All  things  were 
made  by  him,"  and  in  the  seventeenth  chapter, 
twenty-first  verse,  "  as  thou,  Father,  art  in  me 
and  I  in  thee." 

I  have  taken  these  witnesses  to  the  credibil- 
ity of  our  Gospels  from  the  epoch  prior  to  Ire- 
noeus  and  Tertnllian,  and  just  at  the  threshold 
of  the  Irenaean  period,  the  second  and  third 
decade  after  the  middle  of  the  second  century 


52  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

There  are,  however,  left  to  us  other  witnesses 
much  earlier,  and,  like  those  just  quoted,  men 
who  speak  to  us  right  from  the  very  hosom  of 
the  church. ^^ 

Between  the  apostolic  epoch  and  that  which 
followed  there  intervene  the  so-called  apostolic 
Fathers ;  for  as  direct  disciples  of  the  apostles 
they  must  be  reckoned  as  in  immediate  connec- 
tion with  the  apostolic  age.  If  in  the  little  which 
these  men  have  left  us  we  do  not  find  anything 
which  can  be  construed  as  definite  testimony  as 
to  the  authenticity  of  the  Gospels,  still  we  are 
not  to  conclude  from  their  silence  that  the  Gos- 
pels were  not  in  existence  before  their  time.  But 
should  there  be  in  their  writings  a  constant 
use  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  not  the  slightest 
use  of  the  New,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
latter  lay  so  much  nearer  to  hand,^^  the  proba- 
bility must  be  accepted  as  great  that  at  that 
time  the  Gospels  wore  not  accepted  as  of  equal 
weight  with  the  Old  Testament. 

And  this  appears  to  have  been  the  case  with 
tlie  epistle  of  the  Roman  Clement,  written  in 
the  second  or  third  decade  before  the  close  of 


EPISTLES    OF  IGNATIUS  AND   POLYCARP.       53 

the  first  century,  and  about  a  decade  after  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.  At  that  time  no 
canon  -of  the  Gospels  was  in  existence.  It  is 
indeed  unquestionable  that  in  his  epistle,  rich 
in  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament,  Clement 
refers  here  and  there  to  passages  ^^  in  the  Pau- 
line Epistles,  which  have  indeed  chronologically 
priority  over  the  Gospels,  though  not  in  any 
other  sense. ^^ 

It  is  otherwise  with  those  other  constituentg 
of  this  literature  to  whose  discussion  we  now 
come,  —  the  epistles  of  Ignatius  and  that  of 
Polycarp.  The  first  of  these  have  reached  us 
various  in  extent  and  variously  edited.  Three 
extant  only  in  Latin  are  manifestly  later  addi- 
tions to  the  older  literature  ;  and  so  too  are  five 
others,  written  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  Armenian, 
their  authenticity  being  disowned  by  the  fact 
that  Eusebius  makes  no  allusion  to  them. 
There  are  besides  seven  epistles,  which  are  ex- 
tant in  a  longer  and  a  shorter  form :  of  the 
longer  one,  there  is  also  an  ancient  Latin  ver- 
sion ;  of  the  shorter,  a  Latin  version  and  Syriac, 
and  Armenian  ones  as  well.     With  this  is  to 


54  ORiam  of  the  four  gospels. 

he  joined  -the  fact  that  twenty  years  ago  a  Syr- 
iac  Yersion  of  three  of  these  seven  epistles  was 
discovered,  more  brief  than  the  short  Greek 
text.  After  the  debate  respecting  the  longer 
and  the  shorter  epistles  had  been  decisively  set- 
tled in  favor  of  the  shorter,  the  question  ar^se 
whether  the  three  extant  in  the  Syriac  transla- 
tion are  not  to  be  preferred  to  these  seven 
shorter  ones.  When  several  scholars  declared 
themselves  in  favor  of  this,  others  defended  the 
earlier  origin  of  the  seven  Greek  epistles,  in- 
sisting that  the  three  in  Syriac  were  a  mere 
extract,  intended  for  devotional  uses.  We  hold 
this  to  be  the  more  correct  view.  Similar 
occurrences  are  not  unknown  in  the  apocryphal 
writings  of  the  New  Testament.  An  extraordi- 
nary proof  in  this  case  is  afforded  by  the  cir- 
cumstance that  these  seven  epistles  are  not 
only  recognized  by  Eusebius  (iii.  36),  but  are 
alluded  to  in  the  letter  of  Polycarp.  In  order 
to  escape  the  force  of  this  testimony,  the  most 
decisive  passage  in  the  latter  epistle,  defended 
as  it  is  by  Eusebius  himself,  must  be  set  aside 
as  unauthentic.     Besides  this,  the  assigning  of 


EPISTLES    OF   IGNATIUS   AXD   POLYCARP.        55 

superior  value  to  the  three  Syriac  letters  is 
invalidated  by  the  fragmentary  character  of 
many  passages ;  one  is  so  manifestly  an  excerpt 
from  the  Greek  text  that  it  must  be  admitted 
that  one  section  has  been  lost  through  the  care- 
lessness of  the  copyist.  We  claim  the  right, 
therefore,  of  holding  to  the  authenticity  of  the 
seven  epistles  ascribed  by  Eusebius  and  Poly- 
carp  to  Ignatius,  and  written  while  he  was  on 
the  way  from  Antioch,  through  Smyrna  and 
Troas,  to  his  martyrdom  at  Rome.  Examining 
them  with  reference  to  our  present  theme,  we 
find  several  allusions  to  Matthew  and  John. 
Take  this  passage  (letter  to  the  Romans,  chap. 
6)  :  "  For  what  is  a  man  profited  if  he  shall  gain 
the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?"  taken 
literally  from  Matt.  xvi.  In  like  manner,  the 
passage  in  his  epistle  to  the  people  of  Smyrna, 
in  which  he  asserts  of  Jesus  that  he  was  baptized 
by  John  "  in  order  that  all  righteousness  might 
be  fulfilled  by  him,"  reminds  one  of  Matt.  iii.  15 : 
"for  thus  it  becometh  us  to  fulfill  all  righteous- 
ness." In  the  letter  to  the  Romans  (chap.  7), 
he  writes,  "  I  want  the  bread  of  God,  the  bread 


56       ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

of  lieaven,  the  bread  of  life,  which  is  the  body 
of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God ;  .  .  .  and 
I  want  the  draught  of  God,  the  blood  of  Jesus, 
which  is  imperishable  love  and  eternal  life." 
Compare  this  with  the  sixth  chapter  of  John, 
verse  41 :  "I  am  the  bread  which  came  down 
from  heaven  ;  "  verse  48  :  "I  am  that  bread  of 
life ; "  verse  51 :  "And  the  bread  that  I  will 
give  is  my  flesh  ;  "  ^erse  54 :  "  Whoso  eateth 
my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  hath  eternal 
life."  To  the  Pfiiladelphians  he  writes  (chap. 
7),  "What  if  some  wished  to  lead  me  astray 
after  the  flesh  ?  but  the  Spirit  is  not  enticed  ; 
he  is  from  God  ;  he  knows  wherever  he  cometh 
and  whither  he  goeth,  and  he  brings  to  punish- 
ment that  which  is  hidden."  These  verses 
have  as  their  basis  John  iii.  6  to  8,^^  while  the 
last  clause  grows  out  of  the  twentieth  ^'^  verse. 
Were  these  allusions  of  Ignatius  to  Matthew 
and  John  a  mere  isolated  phenomenon,  and  one 
which  would  be  adverse  to  other  points  in  this 
discussion  on  which  no  doubts  rest,  they  would 
not  have  decisive  weight.  But  so  far  from 
militating  against  other  points  of  evidence,  they 


POLTCARP'S   EPISTLE    TO' THE   PHILIPPIANS.     57 

are  in  full  agreement  with  them,  particularly  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  at  the  time  when  the  let- 
ters were  written,  between  107,  the  date  gener- 
ally assigned,  and  115,  they  contain  references 
to  two  of  the  most  important  of  the  four  Gos- 
pels. 

The  letter  of  Polycarp  tc  the  Philippians 
connects  itself  most  closely  with  those  "of  Igna- 
tius. According  to  his  own  testimony,  it  was 
written  very  soon  after  the  martyrdom  of  Igna- 
tius ;  tliat  is,  between  107  and  115.  It  contains 
very  brief  quotations  from  Matthew,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, in  chap.  2 :  "Think  on  the  Lord  how  he 
said.  Judge  not,  that  ye.be  not  judged  [Matt, 
vii.  1].  Forgive,  and  it  shall  be  forgiven  you 
[similar  to  Matt.  vi.  14].  Be  merciful,  that 
you  may  obtain  mercy  [compare  with  Matt.  v. 
7].  And  with  what  measure  ye  mete  it  shall 
be  measured  to  you  again  [a  literal  quotation 
from  Matt.  vii.  2].  And  blessed  are  the  poor, 
and  they  which  are  persecuted  for  righteous- 
ness' sake  ;  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven'* 
[taken  almost  verbatim  from  Matt.  v.  3  and 
10] .     Further,   chap.    7 :    "  We   will    implore 


58  ORIGIIT   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  Omniscient  God  not  to  lead  ns  into  temp- 
tation, remembering  the  words  of  the  Lord, 
The  spirit  is  willing  but  the  flesh  is  weak " 
[compare  Matt.  vi.  13  and  xxvi.  41].  Special 
weight  must  be  ascribed  to  that  passage  in 
Polycarp's  letter  which  clearly  manifests  the  use 
of  the  First  Epistle  of  John.  Polycarp  writes, 
chap.  T  :  "  For  every  one  who  does  not  confess 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  anti- 
christ:"  in  John  (iv.  3)  the  passage  runs,  "  Ev- 
ery spirit  that  confesseth  not  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
come  in  the  flesh  is  not  of  God  ;  and  this  is  that 
spirit  of  antichrist."  The  importance  of  this 
use  by  Polycarp  of  the  Epistle  of  John  is  based 
upon  this,  that  —  although  the  heroes  of  doubt 
bring  into  suspicion  even  that  which  is  really 
indisputable  —  the  Epistle  and  the  Gospel  of 
John  are  shown,  by  their  essential  unity  of  in- 
cident and  language,  to  have  necessarily  had 
the  same  author ;  and  thus  the  use  of  the  Epis- 
tle argues  the  use  of  the  Gospel  as  well.  I 
have  shown  above,  from  Polycarp's  intimate 
relation  to  John,  how  valuable  is  his  testimony: 
it  has  such  great  weight  as  scarcely  to  allow  a 


POLYCARP'S   LETTER    TO    THE   PUILIPPIANS.     59 

word  to  be  uttered  in  disavowal  of  the  writings 
which  he  confirms.  The  unworthy  skill  of 
modern  scholars  has  not  shrunk,  however,  from 
setting  aside  the  fact  of  Polycarp's  testimony 
and  unnerving  its  strength.  A  writer  of  much 
acuteness  says,  ''  We  are  not  compelled  to  re- 
gard the  words  of  Polycarp  as  an  actual  quota- 
tion from  John,  for  that  may  have  been  a  sen- 
tence whicli  had  come  into  circulation  in  the 
church,  and  may  have  been  committed  to  paper 
by  John  just  as  well  as  by  Polycarp,  without 
compelling  the  latter  to  learn  it  from  the  for- 
mer." Before  this  conjecture  had  been  bruit- 
ed, a  fellow-believer  had  fallen  upon  another 
way  out  of  the  difficulty :  ''  Can  the  thing  not 
be  reversed  ?  May  not  the  author  of  the  Johan- 
nean  Gospel,  which  is  as  little  genuine  as  so 
much  else  that  has  for  two  thousand  years  re- 
ceived the  reverent  homage  of  Christendom,  — 
may  not  this  false  John  have  cited  as  well  from 
Polycarp  ?  "  It  requires  a  great  deal  of  courage 
to  give  utterance  to  such  an  idle  fancy ;  yet 
there  are  men  of  learning  who  are  not  lacking 
in  this  courage.     But  the  universal  and  radical 


60  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

medicament  which  must  be  relied  on  at  the 
last  admits  in  this  instance  of  a  double  applica- 
tion. If  the  Gospel  of  John  can  be  thrown 
overboard  so  easily,  the  Epistle  of  Poljcarp  can 
not  so  readily  be  disposed  of.  Polycarp,  then, 
did  not  write  the  epistle.  Yet  the  disciple  of 
Polycarp,  Irenaeus,  believed  and  gave  his  wit- 
ness to  just  the  contrary.  But  there  are  never 
lacking  specious  grounds  for  a  false  position ; 
and  the  professors  of  the  nineteenth  century 
have  the  art  of  putting  out  of  sight  even  an 
Irengeus  and  his  fellows. 

The  attack  on  the  authenticity  of  Polycarp's 
epistle  is  all  the  more  worth  refuting,  because, 
if  successful,  it  does  away  no  less  with  the  gen- 
uineness of  Ignatius's  epistles,  all  the  more 
troublesome  if  they  are  to  be  accepted  in  the 
limits  which  Polycarp  and  Eusebius  assigned  to 
them.  On  this  account  the  latest  outbreaks  of 
critical  presumption  and  audacity  have  been 
directed  against  the  whole  Polycarp-Ignatius 
literature.  What  one  of  these  critical  heroes 
does  not  venture,  another  does.  One  goes  to 
work  more  in  "  root  and  branch  "  fashion,  an- 


JUSTIN  MARTYR.  61 

other  more  artistically.  The  one  contents  him- 
self with  rejecting  on  his  own  authority  all 
those  passages  in  Polycarp's  letter  which  allude 
to  the  person  and  epistles  of  Ignatius,  imputing 
them  to  a  forger  known  to  have  lived  long  be- 
fore Eusebius's  time ;  the  other,  on  the  contrary, 
casts  away  the  whole  letter.  In  like  manner, 
the  one  satisfies  himself  with  regarding  the 
three  shortest  Syrian  epistles  of  Ignatius  as 
genuine ;  the  other  holds  it  more  advisable  to 
assert  that  not  a  single  one  of  the  collective  let- 
ters of  Ignatius  is  genuine.  Such  dealings  as 
this  would  soon  convert  the  temple  of  God  into 
a  common  ruin. 

For  my  own  part,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  advance 
further  in  the  period  of  Polycarp.  Justin  the 
Martyr,  even  before  his  violent  death  in  Rome 
in  163  made  his  memory  dear  to  the  church, 
had  attained  to  great  celebrity  through  his 
writings.  Three  of  his  works  are  still  extant 
in  the  complete  form,  and  their  authenticity  is 
undisputed,  —  the  two  apologies  and  the  dia- 
logue with  the  Jew  Tryphon.  Eusebius  dis- 
plays perfect  familiarity  with  the   two  which 


32  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

were  written  to  defend  Christianity  against  the 
attacks  of  high  pagan  authorities,  and  speaks 
of  them  as  two  separate  works,  one  of  which 
was  dedicated  to  tlie  Emperor  Antoninus,  the 
other  to  Marcus  Aurelius.  Jerome  repeats  the 
statement  of  Eusebius,  and  most  scholars  ^^ 
down  to  the  present  day  have  coincided  with 
him.  The  first  work  must  be  assigned  to  the 
year  138  or  139,  the  other  to  the  year  161,  the 
first  year  of  tlie  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 
Respecting  the  first,  however,  it  should  be  said 
that  it  was  in  139  that  Marcus  Aurelius  (Beris- 
simus)  was  named  as  Caesar,  yet  the  inscription 
does  not  address  him  with  the  imperial  title. 
Yery  recently  there  have  been  new  views  taken 
respecting  this  matter,  and  there  has  been 
unjustified  evidence  ^^  brouglit  forward  to  sup- 
port the  assigning  of  the  year  147^^  to  the  pro- 
duction of  the  first  of  the  two  works  in  ques- 
tion :  some,  moreover,  have  felt  themselves  jus- 
tified in  taking  a  position  not  warranted  by 
Eusebius  and  Jerome,  and  in  regarding  the 
second  apology  as  no  independent  production, 
but  a  mere  appendix  to  the  first.    Neither  the 


JUSTIN  MARTYR'S    TESTIMONY.  03 

one  view  nor  the  other  appears  to  me  to  be 
thoroughly  grounded.  Still,  the  value  of  Jus- 
tin's testimony  is  very  little  affected  by  the  ques- 
tion whether  he  wrote  a  few  years  prior  or  sub- 
sequently to  the  year  140.  Yet  the  fact  that 
these  two  works  of  Justin's  were  written  prior 
to  the  middle  of  the  second  century  makes  the 
question  one  of  great  interest  whether  he  dis- 
cussed our  Gospels  in  them.  It  is  a  topic  which 
has  been  treated  in  our  time  by  many  persons, 
and  with  great  variance  of  opinion.  What  is 
the  essential  result  gained  from  these  investiga- 
tions ?  That  Justin  often  quotes  from  our  own 
Matthew,  is  indisputable.^*^  That  in  various 
passages  he  follows  Mark  and  Luke,  is  extremely 
probable.''^  Yet  this  fact  has  been  invalidate  J 
by  the  efforts  of  some  to  show  that  Justin  did 
not  use  our  Gospels  as  his  basis,  but  writings 
very  like  them  in  character,  perhaps  the  Gos- 
pel of  the  Hebrews,  or,  according  to  some,  tlie 
Gospel  of  Peter,  which  was  derived  from  the 
latter,  but  which,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
passages,''^  has  remained  entirely  unknown  to 
us  to  the  present  time.     One  support  for  this 


64        ORIGIX   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

view  is  found  iii  the  fact  that  some  quotations 
of  Justin  are  also  found  in  the  pseudo-Clemen- 
tine homilies,  having  there  the  same  or  similar 
differences  from  the  readings  in  the  canonical 
text."*^  The  supposition  is,  perhaps,  an  admis- 
sible one,  that  Justin,  at  the  very  earliest  times, 
drew  that  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  which  con- 
tained such  repeated  references  to  Matthew, 
into  the  circle  of  his  evangelical  quotations  in 
one  of  his  first  works  ;  for  we  have  Eusebius's 
authority,  in  the  first  half  of  the  fourth  century, 
for  the  fact  that  at  his  time  this  Gospel  was 
reckoned  by  several  authorities  as  belonging  to 
the  canon.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  mani- 
fest and  groundless  exercise  of  arbitrary  au- 
thority to  hold  that  such  of  his  quotations  as 
harmonize  more  or  less  closely  with  our  received 
text  are  taken  from  a  source  respecting  which 
we  are  left  to  conjecture  alone.  Such  a  view  is 
all  the  more  inadmissible  from  the  fact  that 
free  extracts  from  our  Gospels  are  fully  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  character  of  the  times  in 
which  they  fall ;  and  this  is  the  same  epoch, 
the  first  half  of  the  second  century,  to  which 


JUSTIN  MARTYR'S    TESTIMONY.  65 

we  trace  the  main  origin  of  the  diverse  mate- 
rials wliicb  enter  into  the  canon,  and  more  es- 
pecially the  Gospels.  With  equal  freedom  Jus- 
tin makes  his  quotations  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, even  if  he  may  not  be  proved  to  take  his 
text  exclusively  from  the  standard  Septuagint. 
And  the  fact  is  not  to  be  overlooked,  that  the 
passages  quoted  by  Justin  from  the  Gospels  can 
not  be  judged  by  the  documents  comprising  the 
New  Testament  text  which  has  come  down  to 
us,  and  which  forms  the  substance  of  our  usual 
editions  ;  it  is  clear  that  many  of  our  most 
widely  diffused  readings  have-  proceeded  from 
earlier  or  more  recent  corruptions  in  the  primi- 
tive text ;  the  Gospels  especially  were  subject 
to  arbitrary  changes  within  the  very  first  ten 
years  after  they  had  been  committed  to  writ- 


ing 


44 


My  discussion  thus  far  of  the  extracts  which 
Justin  makes  from  the  Gospels  relates  solely  to 
those  which  he  draws  from  the  synoptic  ones, 
the  first  three.  Despite  the  prevailing  skepti- 
cism in  this  matter,  it  is  as  good  as  certain  that 
Justin  made  use  of  those  three  Gospels :  but 

5 


66  ORIGIN  OF   THE   FOUR  GOSPELS. 

all  the  more  obstinate  is  the  assertion  that  he 
had  no  acquaintance  with  John's  Gospel.  But 
what  in  fact  is  his  relation  to  John  ?  In  my 
opinion  there  are  most  cogent  reasons  for  be- 
lieving that  John  was  read  and  used  by  Justin. 
The  delineation  of  the  person  of  Christ,  char- 
acteristic of  John,  as,  for  example,  in  the  open- 
ing of  the  Gospel,  "  In  the  beginning  was  the 
Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the 
Word  was  God,"  and  in  verse  fourteen,  "  And 
the  Word  became  flesh,"  as  well  as  the  general 
designation  of  Jesus  as  the  Logos  or  Word  of 
God,^^  appears  unmistakably  in  not  a  few  pas- 
sages in  Justin,  such,  for  instance,  as  "  And  Je- 
sus Christ  was  begotten  in  a  manner  wholly  pe- 
culiar to  himself  as  the  Son  of  God,  while  he 
is  also  the  Word  (Logos)  of  the  same."  "  The 
primeval  force  (dvvaiii^)  after  the  Father  of 
All  and  God  the  Lord,  is  the  Son,  the  Word 
(Logos)  ;  and  I  shall  show  how  he  througli 
the  incarnation  (6aQ-A07toii]dc)g)  became  man." 
"  The  Word  (Logos)  of  God  is  the  Son  of  the 
same."  "  As  they  have  not  confessed  all  that 
belongs  to  the  Logos,  which  is  Christ,  they  have 


JUSTIN'S    TESTIMONY.  67 

often  uttered  what  is  at  variance  with  itself.'* 
"Through  the  Word  (Logos)  of  God,  Jesus 
Christ  our  Saviour  became  flesh  (oaQ-AOTtoirfic)^^.'''' 
To  these  passages,  taken  from  the  brief  second 
Apology,  I  add  tlie  following,  taken  frcftn  the 
first  (chap.  33):  "  By  the  expressions  the 
Holy  Ghost  and  the  Power  of  God  in  Luke  i.  35 
[the  Holy  Ghost  shall  come  upon  thee  and  the 
power  of  the  Highest  shall  overshadow  thee], 
we  are  to  understand  the  Logos,  which  is  the 
first  begotten  of  God."  In  the  "  Dialogue," 
chap.  105,  we  find  that  "  the  same  was  begotten 
by  the  Father  of  All  after  a  peculiar  manner 
as  the  Word  (Logos)  and  Power  (^dvmfiig} ,  be- 
coming flesh  through  the  instrumentality  of 
the  Virgin  Mary,  as  we  learn  from  the  memori- 
als which  I  have  already  displayed."  In  order 
to  invalidate  the  proof  found  here  that  Justin 
wrote  not  independently  of  John,  critics  have 
made  an  effort  to  point  out  the  differences  be- 
tween the  conceptions  of  Logos  which  they  both 
maintained,  and  to  show  that  Justin  had  a  su- 
perficial and  merely  external  view  of  it.  But 
is  it  to  be  supposed  that  those  who  first  accepted 


68  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  doctrines  of  Jolm  were  able  to  fathom  and 
exhaust  theni  all  ?  On  the  contrary,  does  not 
the  fact  that  Justin  was  not  able  to  penetrate 
to  the  depths  of  John's  theology  show  that  in 
his  very  allusions  to  it,  without  fully  compre- 
hending it,  he  was  not  independent  of  it  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  internal  connection  be- 
tween both  meets  the  opponents  of  the  authen- 
ticity of  John's  Gospel  in  no  more  convincing 
manner  than  in  showing  how  the  doctrines 
of  Jolm  may  be  culled  from  the  words  of 
Justin. ^^ 

There  are  not  wanting  passages  in  John's 
Gospel,  moreover,  which  may  be  found  specifi- 
cally reproduced  in  Justin.  In  the  '*  Dialogue," 
chap.  88,  he  writes  of  John  the  Baptist,  "The 
people  believed  that  he  was  the  Christ ;  but  he 
said  to  them,  I  am  not  Christ,  but  the  voice 
of  a  preacher."  This  is  in  direct  connection 
with  the  words  of  John  i.  20  and  23  ;  for  the 
first  words  in  the  reply  of  the  Baptist  have  been 
reported  by  no  other  evangelist  than  John. 

Twice  can  Justin's  expressions  only  be  ex- 
plained by  supposing  him  to  have  been  familiar 


JUSTIN'S    TESTIMONY.  69 

with  the  account  in  John  ix.  of  the  man  who 
had  been  born  blind.  Ue  speaks  expressly  of 
the  miraculous  healings  effected  by  Jesus,  and 
says  in  the  first  Apology  (chap.  22)  that  the 
Saviour  restored  to  health  one  who  was  born 
lame,  palsied,  and  blind.^^  In  like  manner  in 
the  "  Dialogue "  (chap.  69)  he  declares  that 
Jesus  healed  those  who  were  blind,  deaf,  and 
lame  from  their  birth ,^^  giving  to  one  sound 
limbs,  to  another  hearing,  to  a  third  restored 
sight.  What  a  trick  of  art  is  it  to  take  the 
words  "  I  was  born  blind,"  ^^  spoken  by  the  man 
who  was  a  defender  of  Christ,  and  who  corre- 
sponds to  the  blind  man  of  Jericho,  and  to 
make  them  refer  to  an  unknown  source  used 
by  Justin,  an  ostensibly  lost  authority  of  the 
narrative  which  he  gives  elsewhere  !  To  what 
end  is  this  ?  To  no  other  than  to  discredit  the 
Gospel  of  John,  and  to  deny  that  it  was  before 
Justin  when  he  wrote. 

The  words  of  Zechariah  xii.  10  Justin  quotes 
(first  Apology,  52 ;  also  "  Dialogue,"  14  and 
33)  precisely  in  the  language  of  John  xix.  37, 
"  they  shall  look  on  him  whom  they  pierced.'* 


70       ORIGIN  OF   THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

The  text  of  the  Seventy,  which  Jerome  express- 
ly confirms,  has  an  entirely  different  transla- 
tion^ of  this  passage  ;  yet  there  is  one  of  the 
older  versions  given  us  by  Aquila,  Symmaclms, 
and  Theodotion,  wliich  coincides  with  the  lan- 
guage of  John  and  Justin.  There  is  nothing 
more  improbable  than  that  John  and  Justin 
were  here  independent  of  each  other,  and  fol- 
lowed a  translation  of  the  Hebrew  text  which 
is  unknown  to  us.  Is  the  acceptance  of  this 
theory,  one  of  the  most  untenable  of  positions, 
taken  to  avoid  the  manifest  connection  between 
the  words  of  Justin  and  those  of  John  ? 

To  close  this  part  of  our  discussion,  we  find 
in  Justin's  first  Apology,  chap.  61,  Christ  has 
said,  "  Unless  ye  are  born  again,  ye  can  not  en- 
ter the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  manifest  to 
every  one  that  those  who  have  been  born  once 
can  not  enter  again  into  their  mother's  womb." 
This  passage  has  been  the  theme  of  much  con- 
troversy ;  but  I  am  fully  of  the  opinion  that 
Justin  had  in  view  the  passage  in  John  iii.  3  to 
5,  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a 
man  be  born  again,*^^  he  can  not  see  the  king- 


JUSTIN'S    TESTIMONY.  71 

dom  of  God.^2  Nicodemus  saith  unto  him, 
How  can  a  man  be  born  when  ho  is  old  ?  Can 
he  enter  the  second  time  into  his  mother's 
womb  and  be  born  ?  Jesus  answered,  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Excei:)t  a  man  be  born 
of  water  and  of  the  Spirit  he  can  not  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God  "  [kingdom  of  heaven 
according  to  the  Sinaitic  Codex  and  other  an- 
cient authorities.]  Now  what  means  is  there 
of  escaping  the  inference  which  the  parallelism 
in  these  two  passages  gives  rise  to  ?  Those 
who  have  attempted  to  do  this  have  quoted  Matt, 
xviii.  3,  "  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Except  ye  be 
converted,  and  become  as  little  children,  ye 
shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven," 
and  have  given  utterance  to  the  suspicion  that 
in  some  lost  Gospel,  perhaps  that  of  the 
Hebrews,  to  which  reference  has  already  been 
made,  this  passage  was  recorded  just  as  Justin 
has  given  it,  his  authority  therefor  being  not 
John,  but  some  previous  writer. ^^  In  order 
therefore  to  avoid  what  lies  directly  in  our 
path,  we  are  compelled  to  have  recourse  to 
some  unknown  higher  authority.     The  second 


72        ORIGIN   OF    THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

part  of  Justin's  expression  gives  all  the  less 
reason  for  appealing  from  John  to  Matthew,  that 
the  fifth  verse  in  the  passage  in  John  (stand- 
ing in  direct  connection  with  the  third),  "  he 
can  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven" 
[Himmelreich] ,  is  the  apparent  basis  of 
Justin's  expression,  "  ye  can  not  enter  into 
the  kingdoni  of  heaven."  The  phrase  "  king- 
dom of  God"  was  completely  overshadowed  by 
the  more  usual  one,  kingdom  of  heaven.^*  De- 
cisive too  of  the  personal  use  of  John  by 
Justin  is  that  expression  of  the  latter  relative 
to  the  entering  again  into  the  mother's  womb 
and  being  born,  derived  from  John  iii.  4.  To 
suppose  such  a  coincidence  of  thought  and' lan- 
guage to  have  been  accidental,  is  a  feat  of 
trickery  which  can  deceive  no  one  capable  of 
forming  an  independent  judgment. 

To  this  result,  which  confirms  the  authenti- 
city of  the  first  three  Gospels  as  much  as  it  does 
the  fourth,  I  must  add  two  points  more,  which 
still  strengthen  my  conclusions.  One  of  these 
is,  that  Justin  is  in  the  habit  of  alluding  to 
the  "  Memorabilia  of  the  Apostles,  known  as 


JUSTIN'S   TESTIMONY.  73 

Gospels,"  witliout  specifically  mentioning  the 
names  of  the  authors.  Yet  while  doing  this  he 
makes  particular  mention  of  the  fact  that  the 
writers  were  apostles  ^^  and  companions  of  Je- 
sus, and  hy  speaking  of  their  combined  writ- 
ings as  the  ''  Gospel "  he  leads  us  to  the  un- 
doubting  conviction  that  it  was  invested  with 
full  canonical  authority :  and  such  an  investi- 
ture naturally  allows  the  names  of  the  wri- 
ters to  fall  into  the  background  and  to  be 
unnoticed,  while  their  writings  might  have 
general  acceptance.  In  the  second  place,  we 
have  to  notice  that  Justin,  even  in  his  first 
Apology  (chap.  67),  asserts  that  in  the  Chris- 
tian congregations  the  "  Memorabilia  of  the 
Apostles  or  the  writings  of  the  Prophets"  were 
read  every  Sunday.  Here  then  is  an  instance 
of  the  Gospels  and  the  prophetical  books  being 
placed  on  the  same  plane,  the  first  being  ex- 
alted to  the  same  canonicity  which  the  latter 
had  enjoyed  from  the  first.  It  is  an  error  or  a 
self-deception  to  deny  that  Justin's  words  do 
not  warrant  the  acceptance  of  those  books  as 
canonical,  on  the  ground  that  there  were  writ- 


74       ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

ings  read  in  the  church  which  were  not  ac- 
cepted as  a  part  of  the  canon.  There  were 
such  books  indeed,  but  they  formed  a  class 
subordinate  to  the  canon,  and  pre-supposing 
the  formation  of  it.  Of  course  there  was  not 
at  the  outset  an  immediate  recognition  of  the 
equality  of  the  Christian  records  with  the  hal- 
lowed books  of  the  Old  Testament ;  but  after 
the  church  had  enlarged  the  canon  by  ad- 
mitting those  sacred  writings  which  had  sprung 
from  a  common  source,  and  had  given  them 
equal  honor  with  those  previously  accepted, 
there  came  into  view  certain  books  which  had 
more  or  less  claim  to  recognitron  as  canonical : 
and  thus  it  came  about  that  some  were  admit- 
ted to  the  prerogative  of  being  read  in  the 
churches,  without  sharing  the  same  honor 
which  was  given  to  those  accepted  as  fully  ca- 
nonical. At  a  later  period  the  church  found  it 
to  be  for  its  interest  to  assign  to  these  books,  to 
which  usage  gave  a  kind  of  half-canonical  char- 
acter, a  rank  equal  to  the  highest.  That  this 
does  not  apply  in  the  least  to  the  earliest  for- 
mation of  the  Christian  canon  is  shown  by  the 


JUSTiyS    TESTIMONY.  75 

Muratori  Fragment  which  speaks  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse of  John  and  of  Peter.  We  accept  these, 
but  the  last  named  is  not  admitted  by  some  of 
our  scholars  to  the  honor  of  being  publicly  read 
in  church.  This  doubt  expresses  distinctly  the 
want  of  full  canonical  authority  which  led  to 
the  rejection  of  the  writing  in  question.  Later 
usage  can  not  do  away  with  this  ;  and  just  as 
little  can  the  fact  that  in  some  instances  the 
direct  relation  of  a  paper  to  a  single  congrega- 
tion became  a  source  of  advantage  to  the  com- 
mon church,  as  is  testified  by  Dionysius  of 
Corinth  (Euseb.,  Hist.  Eccl.  iv.  23)  in  the  case 
of  the  letters  of  Clemens  and  Soter  to  the  Co- 
rinthians. In  the  Muratori  Fragment  already 
referred  to,  it  is  stated,  toward  the  end  of  the 
Shepherd  of  Hermas,  that  he  was  to  be  recom- 
mended for  private  use,  but  not  for  public  wor- 
ship, and  that  he  was  to  be  included  neitlier  in 
the  number  of  prophets  nor  apostles. 

The  manner  in  which  Justin  expresses  him- 
self in  the  passage  quoted  above  (first  Apology, 
chap.  07)  makes  it  impossible,  in  my  opinion, 
to  doubt  that  in  his  time  the  Gospels  were  ac- 


76  ORiam  of  the  four  gospels. 

cepted  as  of  canonical  authority.  We  possess 
in  fact  a  much  earlier  testimony  of  this  equal- 
ity in  one  of  the  generally  accepted  seven 
short  letters,  in  that  to  Smyrna,  the  seventh 
chapter,  where  are  the  words,  "  It  behooves  us 
to  give  heed  to  the  prophets,  and  especially  to 
the  Gospel,  in  which  the  passion  and  the  res- 
urrection are  fully  portrayed."  Here  too,  as 
the  reader  observes,  there  is  a  manifest  coup- 
ling of  the  prophets  and  the  authors  of  the  Gos- 
pels, i.  e.  the  books  which  in  their  full  extent  and 
defined  limits  form  the  Gospel,  and  a  proof 
that  both  were  in  common  use  in  the  church.^® 

These  are  proofs  from  the  first  quarter  (wheth- 
er the  year  be  taken  as  107  or  115)  and  from  the 
second  quarter  (139,  or,  as  some  suppose,  ten 
years  earlier)  of  the  second  century,  that  at 
that  time  the  Gospels  were  held  as  of  equal 
validity  with  the  prophets,  and  were  admitted 
to  canonical  authority,  a  place  being  assigned 
them  directly  after  tlie  prophetical  books. 
What  is  not  told  us  in  detail  respecthig  the 
various  Gospels  may  be  inferred  from  many 
other  testimonies.     I  have  already  shown,  from 


\  \ 


JUSTIN'S    TESTIMONY.  77 

various  passages  of  Justin  Martyr's  undisputed 
writings,  that  our  Gospels,  without  the  excep- 
tion of  the  fourth,  that  of  John,  were  admitted 
to  form  one  Gospel,  and  to  be  invested  witli 
canonical  authority.  Is  it  possible,  therefore,  for 
the  opinion  to  be  justified  that  at  Justin's  time 
other  Gospels  than  ours  were  in  use  as  having 
had  a  sacred  origin,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that, 
decades  after  Justin,  these,  and  no  others, 
were  in  repute  through  the  whole  Christian 
chuich?  Does  it  not  contravene  all  that  we 
know  of  the  origin  of  the  canon,  that  at  the 
outset,  and  even  in  the  age  of  Justin,  only 
Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  were  regarded  as 
canonical,  and  that  John  was  subsequently 
smuo:":led  in  ? 

CO  ^ 

According  to  the  views  of  many,  Justin  was 
the  author  of  the  Letter  to  Diognetus ;  but  those 
who  assign  to  this  an  earlier  date,  and  con- 
sider it  the  work  of  an  older  cotemporary  of 
Justin's,  are  more  correct.  Although  this  short 
apologetic  epistle  contains  no  definite  quotation 
from  any  one  of  the  Gospels,  it  contains  many 
allusions  to  evangelical  passages,  and  especially 


78  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

to  John.  The  words  of  the  sixth  chapter, 
"  Christians  live  in  the  world,  but  are  not  of 
the  world ;  "  those  of  the  tenth,  ''  for  God  has 
lo^^ed  men,  for  whom  he  created  the  world ; 
.  .  .  .  to  whom  he  has  sent  his  only-begot- 
ten Son,''  contain  almost  unmistakable  refer- 
ences to  John  xvii.  11,  "  these  are  in  the 
world  ;  "  14,  "  the  world  hateth  them,  for  they 
are  not  of  the  world  ;  "  16,  "  they  are  not  of  the 
world,  even  as  I  am  not  of  the  world ;  "  and  to 
John  iii.  16,  "  for  God  so  loved  the  world  that 
he  gave  his  only-begotten  Son." 

But  before  advancing  further  we  must  come 
back  to  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  whose  use 
in  connection  with  our  synoptic  Gospels  is  ren- 
dered probable  by  the  language  of  Justin,  by 
the  pseudo-Clementine,  and  even  by  Tatian's 
Diatessaron,  or  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  and 
testified  by  Eusebius  (iv.  22 :  3)  of  Hegesippus. 
Does  not  this  bring  into  great  uncertainty  the 
character  of  the  earlier  Gospel  canon  ?  It  cer- 
tainly appears  to  do  so  if  the  Gospel  of  the 
Hebrews  is  admitted  to  a  place  side  by  side 
with   the    synoptic    Gospels,   and  be  regarded 


GOSPEL    OF    THE   HEBREWS.  79 

as  an  independent  production.  Against  such  a 
view  there  are  a  variety  of  considerations  to  bo 
urged.  I  have  ah-eady  mentioned  that  tlie 
authorship  of  this  Gospel  was  ascribed  to  Mat- 
thew. We  shall  see,  further  on,  that  at  a  very 
early  period,  in  its  original  Hebrew  form,  it  was 
held  to  be  the  work  of  Matthew,  and  that  Greek 
editions,  with  many  changes  in  the  text,  were 
in  use  among  the  judaiziiig  Christians.  This 
has  led  to  the  result  that  the  passages  of  the 
Gospel  of  the  Hebrews  which  liave  been  trans- 
mitted to  us  from  antiquity,  and  more  especially 
those  which  have  recently  been  brought  to  light ^^ 
by  the  writer  of  these  pages,  manifest  a  striking 
parallelism  with  our  Gospel  of  Matthew.  All 
these  circumstances  lead  to  the  conviction  that 
at  the  beginning,  and  probably  during  the  first 
half  of  the  second  century,  the  Gospel  of  Mat- 
thew and  that  of  the  Hebrews  were  regarded 
not  as  essentially  different  productions,  but  as 
different  editions  of  the  same  document,  and 
that  by  degrees  greater  light  was  diffused  re- 
garding the  variations  in  tliem.  Thus  Irenaeus 
states  of  the  Ebionites,  in  two  passages  (i.  26 ; 


80  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR   GOSPELS. 

2  ;  iii.  11 :  7),  that  tliey  made  use  of  the  Gospel 
of  Matthew;  while  Eusebiiis  (iii.  27),  probably 
referring  to  the  first  of  these  passag-es,  corrects 
Ireiiseiis's  statement,  and  puts  the  Gospel  of  the 
Hebrews  in  the  place  of  that  of  Matthew.  Yet 
it  happened,  near  the  end  of  the  fourth  century, 
that  the  most  learned  theologian  and  most  ex- 
perienced critic  of  his  age,  Jerome,  while  in 
possession  of  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews  in  the 
Syro-Chaldaic  dialect  of  the  country,  and  full 
of  the  recollections  of  an  older  tradition,  be- 
lieved that  it  was  the  original  text  of  Matthew 
fallen  into  his  hands.  After  becoming  more 
fully  acquainted  with  it,  and  after  translating  it 
into  Latin  and  Greek,  he  acknowledged  that 
many  believed  that  it  was  the  work  of  Matthew 
himself. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  concerned  almost  ex- 
clusively with  the  writings  of  men  in  whom  the 
church,  from  the  second  century,  in  which  they 
lived,  onward,  recognized  venerated  pillars  of 
the  faith.  Yet  at  the  same  epoch  there  was  a 
rich  literature,  which,  in  conjunction  with  what 
was   ecclesiastical,  put   forth   a   rank   growth, 


IREN^US'S    TESTIMONY.  81 

which  elevated  far  above  the  simple  Christian 
doctrine  a  system  of  speculations  evolved  from 
the  schools  of  heathen  and  Jewish  philosophy : 
I  refer  to  the  heretical  views  which  became 
current,  and  which  may  be  also  known  as  the 
doctrines  of  the  Errorists.  Even  from  this  lit- 
erature we  derive  convincing  proofs  that  by  the 
middle,  or  even  before  the  middle  of  the  second 
century,  our  Gospels  had  attained  the  highest 
degree  of  consideration.  This  is  interesting 
not  more  for  the  light  which  it  throws  upon  the 
earlier  history  of  heresy  than  for  that  which  it 
sheds  upon  the  age  and  the  origin  of  our  Gos- 
pels. In  calling  upon  these  errorists  to  give 
evidence  respecting  the  Gospels,  we  have  no 
less  an  authority  than  Irenseus,  that  Bishop  of 
Lyons  of  whom  I  have  elsewhere  spoken  in  de- 
tail. Irenaeus  himself  utters  the  expression, 
"  So  firmly  are  our  Gospels  grounded,  that  even 
the  errorists  are  compelled  to  acknowledge 
their  credibility,  and  each  one  of  them  must 
begin  with  them  in  order  to  lay  the  foundations 
of  his  own  system."^  This  is  a  judgment 
passed  by  the  second  half  of  the  second  century 
6 


82  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

on  the  character  of  the  first  half.  And  this 
first  half  of  the  second  century  is  just  the  period 
to  which  the  opponents  of  the  genuineness  of 
our  Gospels  are  accustomed  to  appeal.  Now,  are 
we  to  suppose  that  a  man  like  Irenaeus,  who  lived 
only  a  few  decades  after  the  period  to  which  I 
am  referring,  was  not  better  acquainted  with  the 
facts  than  the  scholars  and  professors  of  the 
nineteenth  century  ?  The  more  the  respect  due 
to  the  true  progress  of  science  in  our  age,  the 
less  is  owed  to  those  scholars  who  employ  their 
knowledge  and  acumen  for  the  purpose  of 
thrusting  at  truth.  The  accuracy  of  what  Ire- 
naeus testified  to  can  be  substantiated  even  to- 
day with  facts ;  and  our  tread  is  all  the  more 
secure  if  we  do  not  withhold  our  belief.  What 
the  earliest  Fathers  have  testified  respecting  the 
primitive  errorists  (and  to  the  hints  of  the  for- 
mer we  owe  the  larger  share  of  our  knowledge 
about  the  latter),  shows  us,  in  the  most  con- 
vincing manner,  how  radically  separate  they 
were  from  the  Gospels,  and  from  the  books 
which  were  considered  holy  by  the  church. 
Irenaeus  himself  is  one  of  the  cliief  preservers 


VALENTINE.  83 

of  these  indications ;  after  him  comes  a  work 
(discovered  only  twenty  years  ago)  of  a  disci- 
ple of  Irenoeiis,  Hippolytus  by  name,  a  man 
who  lived  so  nearly  cotemporaneously  with 
those  errorists  as  to  warrant  being  received  as 
equally  good  authority  as  Irena3us  regarding 
them. 

One  of  the  boldest  and  most  gifted  thinkers 
among  those  errorists  was  Yalentinus,^^  who 
came  from  Egypt  to  Rome  about  the  year  140, 
and  resided  there  for  the  twenty  years  sacceed- 
ing.  He  undertook  the  task  of  writing  a  com- 
plete history  of  those  "  supernal  transactions 
which  took  place  in  the  realm  of  the  divine 
primeval  Powers  and  supernatural  Being  before 
the  sending  of  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father," 
hoping  to  be  able  to  determine  the  better  from 
the  character  of  these  events  the  nature  and 
mission  of  the  Son  of  God.  In  carryhig  out 
this  stupendous  design,  he  did  not  overlook  the 
humble  task  of  culling  from  John's  Gospel  a 
great  number  of  conceptions  and  expressions, 
such  as  the  Only-Begotten,  the  Word,  Light, 
Life,  Fullness,  Truth,  Grace,  Saviour,  Comfort- 


84  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

er,  and  of  using  them  for  his  purpose.  There 
is  in  this  such  an  undeniable  connection  be- 
tween the  Gospel  of  John  and  the  edifice  of 
Valentine's  construction  that  only  two  explana- 
tions of  it  are  possible.  Either  Valentine  made 
use  of  John  or  John  of  Valentine.  The  latter 
alternative,  according  to  my  previously  stated 
views  of  the  second  century,  must  be  regarded 
as  pure  nonsense,  and  closer  investigation  into 
the  matter  confirms  this.  If  science,  hostile  to 
the  church,  is  able  to  reconcile  itself  to  this 
fact,  it  passes  judgment  on  itself.  Irenaeus 
states  explicitly  that  the  sect  of  Valentine  made 
the  fullest  use  of  the  Gospel  of  John;  ^^  and  he 
gives  the  most  explicit  demonstration  that  the 
first  chapter  of  John  was  drawn  upon  for  one 
of  the  main  features  of  the  Valentinian  system, 
the  doctrine  of  the  first  Ogdoade.^^  The  state- 
ment of  Irenaeus  confirms  that  of  Hippolytus, 
for  he  cites  expressions  of  John  which  Valentine 
had  quoted.  This  is  the  most  clearly  the  case 
with  John  x.  8  ;  for  Hippolytus  writes, "  Where- 
as the  prophets  and  the  law,  according  to  Val- 
entine's belief,  were  filled  with  a  subordinate 


VALENTINE.  85 

and  foolish  Spirit,  Valentine  says, '  The  words 
of  the  Saviour  are,  "  All  who  came  before  mo 
are  thieves  and  murderers."  '  "^'^  And  as  the 
Johanncan,  so  were  the  other  Gospels  used  by 
Valentine.  According  to  the  statement  of 
Irenasus,  he  considered  (i.  7  :  4)  the  subordinate 
Spirit  already  mentioned,  which  he  termed 
Demiurges  and  Taskmaster,  to  be  represented 
by  the  centurion  of  Capernaum  (Matt.  viii.  9 ; 
Luke  vii.  8)  ;  in  the  dead  and  resuscitated 
twelve-year-old  daugliter  of  Jairus  he  recog- 
nized an  image  of  his  "  sub-wisdom "  (Acha- 
moth),  the  mother  of  the  Taskmaster  (i.  8  :  2)  ; 
in  like  manner  in  the  history  of  the  woman 
who  had  suffered  for  twelve  years  from  an  issvie 
of  blood,  and  was  healed  by  the  Lord  (Matt.  ix. 
20),  he  recognized  the  pains  and  restoration  of 
his  twelfth  jDrimcval  spirit  (^on)  i.  3:3;  and 
the  expression  of  Jesus  recorded  in  Matt.  v.  18 
he  applied  to  the  ten  seons  hinted  at  in  the 
numerical  value  of  the  Iota,  the  smallest  letter. 
What  do  they  who  deny  the  high  antiquity 
of  John's  Gospel  say  to  this  ?  They  assert  that 
all  that  pertains  to  John  was  not  brought  out 


86        ORIGIN   OF    THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

by  Yalentine  himself,  but  by  his  disciples.  In 
fact,  the  expression  is  much  more  frequent  in  Ire- 
naeus  "  they  say  "  — the  followers  of  Yalentine 
—  than  "he  says,"  meaning  Yalentine  himself. 
But  who  is  wise  enough  to  discriminate  be- 
tween what  the  master  said  and  what  the  disci- 
ples added,  without  echoing  their  master  in  the 
least  ?  ^  We  must  here  touch  once  more  upon 
the  passage  of  Irenteus  (iii.  11 :  7)  where  he 
expresses  himself  respecting  the  relation  of  the 
heretics  to  the  Gospels.  After  the  sentence, 
"  So  securely  are  our  Gospels  founded,  that 
even  the  errorists  give  testimony  for  them, 
and  every  one  of  these  begins  at  the  Gospels 
when  he  wants  to  try  the  foundations  of  his 
own  system,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  For  the  er- 
rorists make  exclusive  Tise  of  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew,  and  are  convinced  from  his  pages 
alone  of  their  error  respecting  the  Lord.  Mar- 
cion,  however,  avails  himself  of  the  mutilated 
Gospel  according  to  Luke,  and  the  very  part 
which  he  retains  makes  his  blasphemy  against 
the  only  God  apparent.  Those  who  separate 
Jesus  from  Christ,  and  insist  that  it  was  Christ 


VALENTINE.  87 

alone,  and  not  Jesus,  who  suffered,  assign  a 
I^reforence  to  the  Gospel  according  to  Mark. 
If  they  read  it  with  real  love  of  truth,  they  can 
be  cured  of  their  error  ;  but  they  who  cleave  to 
Valentine  make  the  fullest  use  of  John's  Gos- 
pel for  the  confirmation  of  their  doctrine  of 
JEons ;  and  from  this  it  can  be  seen  that  they 
teach  nothing  correctly,  as  we  have  shown  in 
our  first  book."  Does  this  representation  of 
Irenseus  accord  with  the  view  that  the  use  of 
the  Gospel  according  to  John  began  with  the 
disciples  of  Valentine,  and  not  with  Valentine 
himself?  Irenaeus  declares  the  use  of  the 
Johannean  Gospel  to  have  been  a  characteristic 
feature  of  Valentine's  school ;  and  those  names 
and  conceptions  already  alluded  to,  which  per- 
vaded the  whole  system,  testify  convincingly  to 
this :  yet  was  all  this  a  mere  affix  to  the  sys- 
tem ?  So  much  respecting  Irenaeus.  In  Hip- 
polytus  the  expression  is  even  more  definite 
regarding  Valentine.  If  now  it  is  indisputable 
that  the  author  does  not  always  discriminate 
closely  between  the  sect  and  the  founder  of  the 
sect,  have  we  an  example  of  this  in  the  case 


88        ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

now  under  consideration  ?  In  those  instances 
where,  in  the  course  of  a  consecutive  delinea- 
tion, we  are  called  upon  to  consider  now  the 
founder  and  then  the  sect,  is  it  not  more  logi- 
cal to  conclude  that  the  founder  and  the  sect 
are  to  be  taken  as  inseparably  connected  ? 

From  one  disciple  of  Valentine's,  Ptole'maus 
by  name,  we  receive  a  learned  epistle,  directed 
to  "  Flora."  In  it,  in  conjunction  with  several 
quotations  from  Matthew,  is  one  from  the  first 
chapter  of  John  :  "  All  things  were  made  by 
him  (the  Word),  and  without  him  was  not 
anything  made  that  was  made,  says  the  apos- 
tle." The  method  employed  to  rob  such  quota- 
tions of  their  force  is  to  make  the  errorists 
who  use  these  words  as  modern  as  possible ;  if 
it  be  possible  to  trace  them  back  only  to  the 
close  of  the  second  century,  the  proofs  drawn 
from  them  do  not  acomplish  anything  more 
than  to  substantiate  what  is  already  known, 
that  at  that  time,  as  the  opponents  of  the  church 
gladly  concede,  the  church  in  its  ignorance  had 
fallen  into  the  use  of  the  canon  of  four  Gos- 
pels.     But  how  recent  was  Ptolemaus's  time  ? 


PTOLEMAUS.  89 

In  all  the  most  ancient  sources  he  appears  as 
one  of  the  most  distingished  and  most  influen- 
tial disciples  of  Valentine's.  As  the  epoch  of 
the  latter  was  about  the  year  140,  do  we  go  too 
far  in  setting  the  time  of  Ptolemaus  at  about 
160  at  the  latest  ?  Iron  sens  (in  the  second 
book)  and  Hippolytus  name  him  in  connection 
with  Herakleon  ;  and,  in  like  manner,  Pseudo- 
Tertullian  (in  the  affix  to  De  praescriptionibus 
haerticorum)  and  Philastrius  place  him  directly 
after  Valentine.  Irenaeus  in  all  probability 
wrote  the  first  and  second  books  of  his  great 
work  before  the  year  180,  and  in  both  he  con- 
cerns himself  very  much  with  Ptolemaus. 

Here,  however,  we  must  bring  in  the  testi- 
mony of  Herakleon,  the  other  very  eminent 
disciple  of  Valentine.  Herakleon  wrote  an  en- 
tire commentary  on  the  Gospel  of  John ;  his 
work  is  known  to  us  through  the  many  frag- 
ments which  Origen  has  woven  into  his  own 
commentary  on  the  same  Gospel.  From  these 
fragments  it  is  plain  that  Herakleon's  object 
was  carried  out  with  consummate  skill,  to  base 
the  assertions  of  his  school  on  John :  in  this  he 


90       ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

took  the  course  which  we  have  already  re- 
marked ill  Valentine.  Wholly  absorbed  in  his 
own  ideas,  he  found  them  reflected  in  a  certain 
double  sense  of  Scripture  which  he  traced  par- 
ticularly in  John.  In  the  passage,  for  example, 
iii.  12,  "  after  that,  he  withdrew  to  Caperna- 
um," he  held  that  there  is  an  allusion  to  the 
domain  of  material  and  worldly  things  to  which 
the  Saviour  condescended.  The  want  of  sus- 
ceptibility in  this  domain  of  sense  he  thought 
to  be  indic^ited  by  the  fact  that  John  has  given 
us  no  account  of  what  Jesus  said  or  did  while 
in  Capernaum.  The  Samaritan  woman  at  the 
well  of  Jacob  was  to  him  the  representative  of 
all  souls  which  feel  themselves  drawn  to  what 
is  divine  ;  the  water  of  Jacob's  well,  which 
could  not  satisfy  all  spiritual  necessities,  was 
the  transitory  Judaic  economy.  The  man 
whom  the  woman  is  required  to  summon  is 
her  spiritual  complement,  her  pleroma,  her  an- 
gel tarrying  in  the  higher  world  of  spirits.  The 
water  which  was  offered  to  her  indicates  the  di- 
vine life  which  was  poured  forth  by  the  Saviour ; 
the  jar  of  the  woman  portrays  her  susceptibility 


UEIiAKLEOy.  91 

for  this  divine  life.  Is  not  this  commentary 
the  most  striking  proof  of  the  high  authority 
which  the  Gospel  of  John  must  have  had  even 
then  in  the  church,  when  the  very  errorists  who 
had  turned  away  from  the  church  so  willingly 
sought  the  confirmation  of  their  own  ideas  in 
it?  And  does  not  this  show  at  a  glance  the 
absurdity  of  the  theory  which  derives  John's 
Gospel  from  the  school  of  Valentine  ?  But  the 
question  recurs,  How  old  is  Herakleon  ?  It  is 
one  which  has  been  urged  with  consummate 
skill  against  our  ancient  sacred  literature;  and 
the  answer  has  been  given  with  incn  dible 
thoughtlessness,  that  he  was  the  cotemporary 
of  Origen  and  of  Hippolytus.  Unquestionably 
the  oppressive  weight  of  the  matter  under  dis- 
cussion has  been  experienced,  and  hence  has 
arisen  the  blindness  to  the  evidences  of  antiquity 
which  are  still  in  existence. ^^ 

Irenseus  mentions  Herakleon  in  connection 
with  Ptolemaus*^  in  a  way  which  shows  him  to 
have  been  a  well-known  representative  of  the 
school  of  Valentine.  This  acceptation  of  his 
words  is  all  the  more  fully  justified  by  the  fact 


92  ORIGIN  OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

that  lie  makes  no  further  allusion  to  Herakleou. 
Clemens  reminds  us  in  the  fourth  book  of  liis 
Stromata,  written  soon  after  the  death  of  Cora- 
modus  (193),  of  an  interpretation  given  by 
Herakleon  to  Luke  xii.  8,  and  terms  him  at  the 
same  time  the  most  distinguished  member  ^^  of 
Valentine's  school.  Origen  states,  at  the  com- 
mencement of  his  citations  from  Herakleon, 
that  he  was  held  to  be  a  friend  of  Valentine's.'^' 
Hippoljtus  alludes  to  him  in  vi.  29  in  the  fol- 
lowing words:  "  Valeutinus  and  Herakleon  and 
Ptolemaus  and  the  whole  school  of  these  disci- 
ples of  Pythagoras  and  Plato."  Epiphanius 
says  (Haer.  41),  "  Cerdo  (the  same  who,  ac- 
cording to  Irenseus,  iii.  4:  3,  was  with  Val- 
entine in  Eome)  follows  these  (the  Ophites, 
Kainites,  Sethians)  and  Herakleon."  Accord* 
ing  to  this  evidence,  Herakleon  can  not  be  as- 
signed to  a  date  more  modern  than  150  or  160. 
The  expression  which  Origen  has  used  of  his 
relations  to  Valentine  must,  according  to  the 
usages  of  speech,  be  understood  as  applicable  to 
a  personal  relation.^^  Epiphanius  has  certainly 
erred  (an  occurrence  not  often  met  in  him)  in 


HERAKLEON.  93 

letting  Ccrdo,  whose  epoch  must  be  set  at  about 
140,  follow  Hcraklcon ;  but  we  have  not  the 
slightest  right  to  suppose  that  ho  has  made  a 
mistake  equal  to  the  entire  length  of  a  man's 
life,  and  even  more.^^  And  on  this  account  we 
may  rejoice  in  the  fact  that  a  GnOstic  partisan 
wrote  a  complete  commentary  on  the  Gospel 
of  John  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  second 
century. 

Had  this  Gospel  then  freshly  appeared,  and 
was  it  so  flattering  to  the  representatives  of  the 
Valentinian  Gnosis  that  these  gave  it  a  cordial 
welcome  ?  Assuredly  it  was  no  light  task  for 
them  to  draw  out  of  the  simple  words  of  John 
their  own  profound  system.  And  it  is  not  a 
little"  remarkable  that  the  church  thoroughly 
shared  in  the  fancies  of  the  errorists  who  had 
wandered  so  far  out  of  the  way.  In  addition 
to  this,  there  were  those  who  knew  that  John 
had  duly  died  at  Ephesus  without  leaving  be- 
hind any  such  legacy  as  a  Gospel,  and  that  such 
a  work  as  it  was  could  not  have  lain  hid  till 
that  late  day  in  a  corner.  If  the  reader  was 
uot  able  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  him- 


54        ORiGlN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

self  in  this  wondrous  thought-structure,  he 
only  confirmed  this  fact,  that  the  commentary 
of  Heralkeon  is  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  that 
then,  when  it  was  written,  the  Gospel  of  John 
had  long  been  revered  as  one  of  the  hallowed 
writings  of  the  church,  so  that  it  seemed  to 
Herakleon  a  thing  of  special  importance  to  show 
that  this  apostolic  document,  if  it  should  be 
rightly  interpreted,  must  be  used  to  confirm  the 
system  of  Yalentine. 

While  dealing  with  Yalentine,  or,  according 
to  the  order  of  time,  before  reaching  Yalentine, 
we  encounter  Basilides,  the  period  of  whose 
activity  occurs,  according  to  Eusebius,  at  the 
epoch  of  Hadrian.  With  all  his  exhaustive 
speculations  on  the  Primeval,  and  the  secret, 
incomprehensible  and  lofty  forces  which  spring 
from  it  with  living  impulse,  with  all  his  med- 
itations on  the  principles  of  light  and  dark- 
ness, life  and  death,  his  method  of  grasping 
the  subject  of  faith  allied  him  by  a  close  bond 
with  the  adherents  of  the  church,  who  stood  on 
a  lower  platform,  so  far  as  profession  is  con- 
cerned,  than   was   the    case   with   Yalentine. 


BASILIDES.  95 

One  of  his  chief  productions  appears  to  be  a 
commentary  in  twenty- four  books  on  the  Gos- 
pel. Eusebius  (iv.  7)  infers  the  existence  of 
this  work  from  the  statements  of  a  cotempora- 
neous  opponent  of  Basilides,  Agrippa  Castor 
by  name.  Fragments  from  his  book  appear  to 
have  been  preserved  by  Clemens,  Origen,  Epi- 
phanius,  and  the  so-called  Archelaus  Disputa- 
tion. Has  this  work  any  relation  to  the  sub- 
ject now  under  review  ?  It  certainly  appears 
to  have.  For  the  expression  quoted  by  Euse- 
bius from  Agrippa  Castor,  that  Basilides  wrote 
twenty-four  books  ^°  "  on  ilxa  Gospel,"  almost 
compels  us  to  turn  our  thoughts  to  those  Gos- 
pels which,  according  to  that  earliest  form  of 
speech  which  comes  to  light  even  in  Justin  and 
Irenaeus,  were  designated  as  "the  Gospel,"  even 
although  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  passing 
under  the  name  of  Matthew,  was  the  substitute 
for  our  Matthew.  That  this  view  of  the  work 
of  Basilides,  on  the  skeptical  side,  is  simply 
ludicrous,  may  be  seen  at  a  glance.  *  Still  it  is 
in  harmony  witli  what  we  gather  from  the  let- 
ters of  Ignatius,  from  Polycarp,  and  from  Jus- 


96  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

tin,  respecting  the  place  which  the  Gospels 
held  in  the  first  half  of  the  second  century. 
The  fragments  which  have  been  alluded  to  do 
not  invalidate  this  view,  but  rather  confirm  it. 
So,  too,  what  Clemens  cites  (Strom.  3 :  1)  as 
from  Basilides  is  closely  connected  with  Matt. 
xix.  11,  12;'^  the  quotation  from  Basilides, 
found  in  Epiphanius  (Hser.  24:  5),  is  in  direct 
alliance  with  Matt.  vii.  6  ;  ^^  that  found  in  Ori- 
gen  in  the  commentary  (lib.  v.  cap.  5)  to  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  begins  with  the  words 
from  Romans  vii.  9 ;  his  words  are,  "  For  the 
apostle  has  said,  '  Once  I  lived  without  the 
law.'  "  From  this  we  infer  the  general  connec- 
tion of  Basilides  with  our  New  Testament.''^ 

To  this  must  be  added  what  we  learn  through 
the  Philosophumena  of  Hippolytus  concerning 
Basilides.  This  work  contains  a  detailed  ac- 
count of  him,  having  direct  quotations  from 
Paul*^  and  Luke, '^  an  allusion  to  Matthew,  and 
two  passages  from  Jolni.  In  vii.  22,  we  read, 
'-  xVnd  that  is  what  is  said  in  the  Gospels,  '  He 
was  the  true  Light,  which  ligliteth  every  man 
that   Cometh   into   the  world.'  "      John   i.  9. 


BASILIDES.  97 

In  this  passage  the  expression  "  in  the  Gos- 
pels "  is  entitled  to  its  due  weight :  it  presu[> 
poses  the  existence  of  the  evangelical  canon 
liinted  at  in  the  other  forms  of  quotation,  such 
as  "  the  Scripture  says,"  and  "  it  is  written." 
Furthermore,  in  vii.  27,  we  find  the  expression 
"  That  everything  has  its  time  "  is  amply  con- 
firmed by  the  words  of  the  Saviour,  when  he 
says,  ''My  hour  is  not  yet  come."  John  ii.  4. 
Does  not  this  bring  into  perplexity  those  who 
are  so  certain  that  at  the  time  of  Basilides  not 
a  word  of  John's  Gospel  was  written  ?  But  no ; 
there  is  a  ready  way  out  of  this  difficulty.  That 
to  which  the  words,  "  in  the  Gospel  it  is  said," 
give  a  happy  indication,  is  made  to  mean,  (be- 
cause, forsooth,  no  trace  of  a  collection  of  Gos- 
pels can  be  traced  back  to  that  epoch,)  that  Hip- 
polytus  is  not  dealing  with  the  genuine  Basi- 
lides, but  with  a  Basilidian  document  which  was 
the  product  of  his  own  time.  Without  enter- 
ing upon  an  investigation  of  that  discrimina.- 
tion  which  Hippolytus,  who  is  so  familiar  with 
all  that  pertains  to  the  ancient  heretics,  has 
made  between  his  Basilides  and  the  one  yai 

7 


98  ORIGIX   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

more  ancient,  we  must  at  least  grant  that  lie 
has  made  distmct  and  explicit  ^^  reference  to 
the  older  Basilides,  and  that  he  is  not  satisfied 
with  his  reader's  accepting  any  other.  Are  we 
to  suppose  that  it  was  a  simple  matter  for  the 
man  who  had  been  the  disciple  of  Irenaeus,  and 
had  died  in  the  year  235,  to  err  so  singularly, 
while  in  the  latest  years  of  his  life  he  was  pre- 
paring a  work  drawn  from  first  sources,  as 
to  ascribe  to  Basilides  at  the  time  of  Hadrian 
what  had  been  added  during  his  own  time  by 
the  followers  of  Basilides  ?  Are  we  able  to  de- 
termine with  certainty  when  the  old  system  left 
off  and  the  new  began  ?  And  if  we  deny  them 
both,  and  dare  give  credence  to  Hippolytus,  we 
must  admit  that  he  has  done  us  a  great  service 
in  showing  conclusively  that  Basilides  and  his 
school  recognized  the  Gospels  as  books  of  ecclesi- 
astical authority  long  before  the  middle  of  tiie 
second  century,  and  expressly  made  use  of  the 
Gospel  of  John  for  his  ends. 

We  come  to  the  same  result  if  we  trace  the 
relations  of  other  Gnostic  sects,  the  Naasenians 
and  the  Perates  for  example.     The  first  derive 


THE   NAASENIANS.  99 

their  name  from  the  Hebrew  word  naas^  a  snake, 
corresponding  to  the  Greek  Ophites.  While  (he 
last  name  was  long  used  by  Irenaeus  and  others, 
tliat  of  Naasenian's  began  to  be  made  current 
(aside  from  reference  of  Theodoret)  ^^  through 
the  Philosophumena  of  Hippolytus.  That  the 
Naasenians  were  nothing  but  a  fraction  of  the 
Ophites  is  not  at  all  substantiated  by  the  efforts 
made  to  support  this  hypothesis,  and  is  wholly 
disproved  by  the  statement  of  Hippolytus,  who 
put  the  Naasenians  and  the  Peratcs  at  tlie 
head  of  the  Gnostics,  giving  thorn  precedence 
before  Simon  Magus,  the  Valentinians,  and 
Basilides,  but,  as  he  states  expressly  (v.  6),  as- 
signing them  priority  over  all  the  other  Gnos- 
tics. But  while  we  place  the  opinion  of  Hip- 
polytus above  the  doubts  which  negative  criti- 
cism has  raised,  we  yet  reckon  among  the  most 
valuable  comments  on  the  Gospels  the  following 
excerpts  made  by  Hippolytus  from  the  writings 
of  the  Naasenians  livhig  in  the  first  half  of  tlic 
second  century.  In  v.  8  he  has  this  :  •"  For  all 
things,  he  asserts,  (the  writer  of  the  Naasenian 
document)  have  been  made  by  the  same  hand, 


100  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

and  without  that  hand  is  nothing  made.  And 
what  is  made  in  him"^*  is  Life.""^^  In  another 
passage  :  "  That  it  is  which  we  have  learned 
of  tlie  Saviour,  '  Except  ye  drink  my  blood  and 
eat  my  flesh,  ye  shall  not  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  (John  vi.  53)  ;  Except  ye  drink  the  cup 
which  I  drink  (Mark  x.  38  ;  Matt.  xx.  22)  ; 
Whither  I  go  ye  can  not  com3.'  "  John  viii. 
21.  Soon  after  he  says,  "  His  voice  we  have 
heard  indeed,  but  his  form  have  we  not  seen." 
John  iii.  8 ;  v.  37.  In  the  same  connection 
we  find,  "  Touching  this  our  Saviour  says, '  No 
man  can  come  to  me  except  my  heavenly 
Father  draw  him.' "  John  vi.  44.  Again,  v.  9, 
"  For,  says  he,  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  those  who 
worship  him  must  worship  him  neither  on  this 
mountain  nor  in  Jerusalem,  but  in  spirit." 
Cf.  John  iv.  21,  24.  Soon  after  we  meet  the 
words,  "  But  if  thou  knewest  who  it  is  that  asks 
thee,  thou  wouldest  have  asked  of  him,  and  he 
would  have  given  thee  living  water."  Connect- 
ed with  these  passages,  so  evidently  from  John, 
there  are  others  from  Matthew  (vii.  6,  13,  14 ; 


THE   NAASENIANS.  101 

iii.  10  ;  xiii.  3,  et  sq.),  and  from  Paul's  Epistles 
(1  Cor.  ii.  13,  14 ;  2  Cor.  xii.  2,  et  sq.) 

We  ought  not  to  refrain  from  adding  to  these 
Naasenian  citations  from  John  and  found  in 
Ilippolytus,  what  is  given  to  us  in  the  .writings 
of  the  Ophites,  in  that  pseudo-Tertullianic  doc- 
ument (Append,  to  Text  de  praescr.  hseret.) 
which  those  who  lean  to  the  Philosophumena 
believe  to  be  drawn  from  a  writing  still  more 
ancient.  The  quotation  from  John  stands  in 
the  closest  relation  to  that  glorification  of  the 
serpent  from  which  the  sect  of  Naasenians  de- 
rives its  name ;  and  all  the  more  forcibly  are 
we  compelled  to  assign  to  the  founder  of  the 
sect,  and  not  to  some  later  effort  from  it,  the 
application  of  the  passage  from  John.  In  tlie 
pseudo-Tertullian  (chap.  47  of  the  document 
de  praescr.  haer.)  it  is  expressly  stated,  "  To 
these  must  be  added  those  heresiarclis  who  are 
called  Ophites,  i.  e..  Serpent-men.  These  pay 
such  honors  to  the  serpent  that  they  place  it 
even  before  Christ.  For  to  the  serpent,  they 
say,  we  owe  the  beginning  of  our  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil.      When  Moses  comprehended 


102  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  greatness  and  power  of  the  serpent,  lie  ele- 
vated one  of  brass,  and  all  who  looked  upon  it 
were  made  whole.  Besides  this,  they  assert 
that  even  Christ  hints  at  the  sacredness  of  the 
serpent,,  when  he  says,  '  And  as  Moses  lifted  up 
the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even  so  must  the 
Son  of  man  be  lifted  up.'  "  John  iii.  14.  We 
meet  the  same  passage,  as  I  shall  presently 
show,  in  the  literature  of  the  Perates.  For  just 
as  from  the  writings  of  the  Naasenians  many 
passages  were  selected  by  Hippolytus,  so  were 
many  also  taken  from  those  of  the  Perates, 
especially  such  as  were  originally  derived  from 
the  Gospel  of  John.  I  need  cite  but  two  of  these. 
Art.  V.  12.  "  For  the  Son  of  man  is  not  come 
into  the  world  to  condemn  the  world,  but  that 
through  him  the  world  might  be  saved."  John 
iii.  17  ;  v.  16.  ''  And  as  Moses  lifted  up  the 
serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even  so  must  the  Son 
of  man  also  be  lifted  up."     John  iii.  14.^^ 

I  have  as  yet  made  no  mention  of  Marcion,  a 
man  whose  nature  and  activities  were  strangely 
divided  between  the  faith  of  the  church  and  the 
(ynostic  heresy.     It  is  the  more  necessary  for  me 


MAnciON.  103 

to  allude  to  him  because  use  has  been  made  of 
his  writings  in  a  way  entirely  at  variance  with 
my  own  convictions.  He  w^as  born  at  Sinope, 
on  the  Black  Soa,  the  celebrated  Pontine  cap- 
ital of.  that  time,  in  the  early  part  of  the  second 
century.  Subsequently  to  the  year  128  he  ap- 
pears to  have  inculcated  his  peculiar  doctrines 
at  Rome  ;  and,  making  it  his  special  purpose  to 
sever  Judaism  from  Christianity,  he  undertook 
to  eliminate  from  the  apostolic  writings  every- 
thing which  favored  the  former.  In  conse- 
quence of  a  statement  which  has  come  down  to 
us  from  antiquity,  that  this  writer  made  a  col- 
lection of  sacred  writings  (which  may  have 
taken  place  before  the  middle  of  the  second 
century,  between  130  and  140),^^  and  that  he 
admitted  into  this  collection  only  the  Gospel 
of  Luke  and  ten  of  Paul's  Epistles,  making  such 
changes,  moreover,  in  the  text  of  them  all  as 
compelled  them  to  suit  his  ideas,  many  scholars 
have  supposed  that  this  was  the  very  first  col- 
lection of  sacred  writings-  made  by  the  church  ^ 
and  that  the  Gospel  which  he  admitted  into 
his   collection   was   not   Luke's,   but  was   the 


104  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUk    GOSPELS. 

model  wliicli  was  followed  when  the  one  which 
we  possess  and  call  Luke's  Gospel  was  written , 
and  that  he  had  no  acquaintance  with  our  other 
Gospels,  including  that  ascribed  to  John. 

All  three  of  these  positions  we  hold  to  be 
utterly  untenable.  The  first  of  them,  which 
gives  to  Marcion  the  priority  in  making  a  col- 
lection of  New  Testament  Scriptures  for  the 
use  of  the  church,  rests  upon  a  complete  ignor- 
ing of  the  development  of  the  canon ;  the  ele- 
ments of  this  development,  as  my  own  re- 
searches reveal  them,  I  shall  take  occa-sion  to 
sum  up  and  present  on  a  future  page.  It  also 
rests  upon  an  ignoring  of  the  point  of  view  which 
Marcion  took  in  relation  to  the  church.  Tak- 
ing his  stand  upon  the  ground  of  Paul's  expres- 
sions in  the  second  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  respecting  those  departures  from  the 
purity  of  the  faith  which  were  beginning  to  be 
manifested  among  the  apostles  themselves,  he 
believed  himself  called,  in  the  Pauline  sense  of 
the  word,  to  the  task  of  purging  the  Christian 
faith  of  Jewish  elements. ^"^  In  executing  this 
undertaking  nothing  was  more  effective  than 


MAIiCION.  1 05 

the  laying  of  a  correcting  hand  upon  those 
writings  which  even  then  were  accepted  as  the 
valid  standards  of  belief  among  the  adherents 
of  Christianity.  The  correctness  of  this  mode 
of  procedure,  employed  even  by  the  oldest 
fathers  of  the  church,  was  confirmed  in  a  strik- 
ing manner  in  his  dealing  with  the  Pauline 
Gospels.  It  is  confirmed,  moreover,  by  his  treat- 
ment of  Luke's  Gospel,  of  which  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  speak  further  on.  And  does  it  not 
harmonize  entirely  with  his  purpose,  that  he  ex- 
cluded other  New  Testament  writings  from  his 
canon  ?  It  is  possible  that  in  one  or  another 
of  the  excluded  documents  the  same  anti-judai- 
cal  spirit  would  have  led  to  like  results ;  yet  it 
is  perfectly  conceivable,  and  is  not  open  to  our 
criticism,  that  in  his  devotion  to  Paul  he  con- 
tented himself  with  accepting  ten  of  his  Epistles 
and  that  Gospel,  whose  author,  owing  to  his 
being  a  companion  and  helper  of  Paul,  owed 
a  great  deal  to  the  influence  exerted  upon  him 
by  Paul,  so  that  his  work  might  almost  be 
called  the  Gospel  according  to  Paul.^^ 

Very  recently^  the  statement  has  been  made 


106       ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR  GOSPELS. 

with  consummate  naivete,  that  Marcion,  so- 
journing in  a  remote  province  like  Pontus,  en- 
joyed a  limited  accessibility  to  Christian  books, 
and  that  in  making  his  collection  he  accumu- 
lated the  greatest  amount  of  materials  that  his 
scanty  advantages  allowed.  The  distance  of 
that  province,  which  at  the  time  of  Pliny  com- 
prised a  very  large  population  of  Jews  as  well 
as  of  Christians,  from  the  two  centers  of 
Christian  Asia  Minor,  Ephesus  and  Antioch,  is 
not  greater  than  from  Naples  to  Milan ;  and 
who  in  all  the  world,  except  a  short-sighted 
professor,  would  draw  the  inference  that  a 
scholar,  living  in  Pontus,  during  the  fourth 
decade  of  the  second  century,  making  a  collec- 
tion of  the  Christian  sacred  books,  was  not  ac- 
quainted with  all  our  Gospels  ?  The  Epistles 
to  the  Corinthians  and  to  the  Romans  were 
diffused  and  accepted ;  and  yet  we  are  to  be- 
lieve that  the  Gospel  of  John  had  not  found 
its  way  from  Ephesus  to  Sinope !  ^^  Finally,  the 
theory  which  rests  on  the  remoteness  of  Pon- 
tus loses  all  its  force  in  helping  us  solve  the 
question  under  discussion,  from  the  fact  that 


MARCION.  107 

after  Marcioii  went  to  Rome,  and  took  a  high 
position  there,  he  did  not  modify  at  all  wliat 
he  had  done  in  forming  his  collection  of  sacred 
writings.  At  Rome  he  wonld  assuredly  have 
heen  able  to  supply  the  lack  of  materials  from 
which  he  is  alleged  to  have  suffered  at  Pontus  ; 
but  we  do  not  learn  that  he  made  any  addition 
to  his  canon  after  coming  to  Rome. 

The  second  of  the  positions  mentioned  above, 
that  the  gospel  of  Marcion  served  as  a  model 
for  that  which  we  now  accept  as  Luke's — a 
position  which  bears  the  clearest  evidence  from 
the  outset  of  being  the  result  of  reckless  ignor- 
ance —  has  been  surrendered  in  our  own  time  by 
its  own  defenders.  Still  it  is  asserted  by  some 
scholars  that  our  Gospel  according  to  Luke, 
like  that  of  Marcion,  is  a  modified  form  of  one 
still  older  but  subsequently  lost ;  that  that  of 
Marcion  consequently  did  not  spring  from 
Luke's,  but  that  they  both  originated  in  a  com- 
mon source,  to  which  Marcion  remained  true. 
Going  in  this  direction  one  step  further,  they 
succeeded  in  finding  in  Marcion  the  oldest  of  all 
the  Gospel  Codices.     This  view,  entirely  apart 


108      ORIGiy   OF    THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

from  the  last  mentioned  bold  act  of  an  intoxi- 
cated fancy,  is  in  opposition  to  what  Irenseus, 
Tertullian,  and  Epiphanius  say  ^^  regarding  Mar- 
cion's  gospel,  which  they  possessed  ;  in  conse- 
quence, however,  of  the  ignorance  prevailing  re- 
specting Marcion's  labors,  and  in  consequence 
also  of  some  indemonstrable  hypotheses,  it  has 
gained  a  certain  appearance  of  truth  and  conse- 
quent acceptance.  The  efforts  to  strike  out  the 
subsequent  additions  from  our  Gospel  of  Luke 
for  the  purpose  of  restoring  the  supposed  older 
original,  suffer  from  that  arbitrariness  which 
modern  hypercriticism  has  assumed  in  all  dis- 
cussion of  the  origin  of  the  Gospels.  The  fact 
that  Marcion  gave  no  name  ^^  to  his  Gospel  is 
made  to  give  support  to  the  claim  that  it  is  the 
only  true  Gospel,  and  is  entitled  to  no  influ- 
ence in  directing  our  researches  respecting  this 
Gospel. 

We  come  to  the  third  position,  a  refutation  of 
which  will  throw  light  upon  both  of  the  others. 
Marcion  is  asserted  to  have  not  possessed  the 
other  Gospels,  including  that  of  John.  If  Mar- 
cion found  the   other  Gospels   in   their   main 


MARCION.  109 

form,  just  as  wc  possess  tliem  now,  in  the  pos- 
session of  tho  cluirch  of  his  tiino,  the  view  of 
the  priority  of  his  collection  over  the  primitive 
canon  of  the  church  falls  to  the  gi-ound  ;  and 
equally  frail  is  the  hypothesis  respecting  the 
parallelism  between  the  Gospel  according  to 
Marcion  and  our  Luke,  together  with  the  con- 
sequences drawn  therefrom  respecting  the  au- 
thority of  our  canon  in  its  present  form ;  and 
so  there  is  gained  no  insigniiicant  proof  of  the 
high  antiquity  and  the  genuineness  of  the  Gos- 
pel according  to  John. 

What  grounds  have  we  for  believing  that 
Marcion  was  acquainted  with  our  Gospels  ? 
«  All  that  Irenseus  and  TertuUian  still  more  ex- 
plicitly have  told  us  in  reference  to  this  matter 
makes  it  certain.  For  where  Irena3us  (i.  27, 
2)  writes  concerning  Marcion,  that  in  oppo- 
sition to  his  pupils  he  held  his  trustworthi- 
ness greater  than  that  of  the  apostles,  who 
transmitted  the  Gospel  (qui  evangelium  tradi- 
'derunt),  inasmuch  as  he  did  not  give  the  (whole) 
Gospel,  but  a  part  of  the  Gospel  (non  evangel- 
ium, sed  particulam  evangelii),  the  meaning  is, 


110      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

according  to  Irenaeus's  use  of  language  else- 
where (i.  27,  2),  that  Marcion  gave  his  disciples 
only  one  of  the  Gospels,  namely,  that  of  Luke. 
That  by  the  expressions  "  evangelium "  and 
"  particulam  evangelii "  we  are  to  understand 
the  Gospels,  and  not  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
is  shown  by  another  passage  of  his  work  (iii.  12, 
12),  where,' in  reference  to  Marcion  and  other 
heresiarchs,  we  read,  "  The  apostles  have  spread 
the  Gospel  abroad  filled  with  Jewish  prejudices" 
(adhuc  qucB  sunt  Judaeorum  sentientes)  :  and 
these  are  even  more  fair  and  wise  than  the 
apostles."  Irenseus  then  goes  on  to  say,  "  On 
this  account  Marcion  and  his  adherents  have 
made  it  their  aim  to  diminish  the  extent  of  the 
sacred  books  (ad  intercidendas  scripturas  con- 
verei  sunt),  some  of  which  they  have _  entirely 
rejected,  while  they  have  reduced  the  size  of 
Luke's  Gospel  and  Paul's  Epistles,  insisting 
that  the  scriptures  which  they  have  retained 
and  revised  are  the  only  ones  which  are  to  be 
accepted."  These  statements  of  Irenasus  have 
DO  twofold  meaning,  and  are  not  susceptible  of 
two  interpretations.     He  evidently  presupposes 


TERTULLIAX'S    ADMISSIOXSi.  \\\ 

a  familiar  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  read 
er  of  what  he  means  by  the  "  reducing-  of  tlie 
sacred  books,"  and  by  a  "  non-recognition  ''  of 
some  of  them  :  and  in  order  to  understand  what 
he  means  we  have  only  to  take  his  own  point 
of  view. 

Tertullian's  admissions  are  much  more  to  the 
purpose,  although  in  his  case  we  have  to  bear 
in  mind  tliat  he  is  not  writing  for  critical  schol- 
ars, who  are  accustomed  to  avail  themselves  of 
every  lack  in  a  complete  chain  of  evidence  to 
help  support  their  own  views.  After  citing 
(adv.  Marc.  iv.  3)  Marciou's  misuse  of  the  sec- 
ond chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
(see  a  previous  page),  he  says:  "  Connititur  ad 
destruendum  statum  eorum  evangeliorum  quce 
propria  et  sub  apostolorum  nomine  eduntur  vcl 
etiam  apostolicorum,  ut  scilicet  fidom  quam  iUis 
adimit  suo  conforat."  Amoiig  the  Gospels  which 
he  designates  as  those  "  which  bear  the  name 
of  apostles,  or  men  of  apostolic  character,''  are 
to  be  understood'  the  four  which  wo  possess, 
unless  we  purposely  misinterpret  Tertullian's 
words.     Shortly  before  (iv.  2),  he  had  in  the 


112  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUIi    GOSPELS. 

most  definite  language  ^^  designated  the  Gospels 
as  books  which  had  been  written  bj  actual  apos- 
tles, such  as  Matthew  and  John,  as  well  as  by 
men   of  apostolic   dignity,  such  as  Mark  and 
Luke.     In  order  to  escape  the  force  of  this  strik- 
ing testimony  of  Tertullian,  without  accusing 
him  of  ignorance  or  falsification,  an  unfortunate 
attempt  has  been  made  to  get  rid  of  the  diffi- 
culty by  asserting  that  apocryphal  Gospels  are 
here    meant,   bearing   unauthcnticated   names 
of  apostles.     Whoever  listens  for  an  instant  to 
such  a  plea  —  and  how  one  can  is  hardly  to  be 
imagined  —  must  hold  as  not  genuine  the  clos- 
ing words  of  Tertullian,  '•  and  expres&'ly  to  as- 
cribe to  his  own  testimony  the  credibility  which 
he  denies  to  theirs  [the  apostolic  evangelists]." 
Tertullian  repeats,  moreover,  respecting  the  pas- 
sages from  Matthew's  Gospel,   "  Marcion    has 
stricken  this  from  the  Gospel."     Comp.   adv. 
Marc.  ii.  17  ;  iv.   7.     In  the  passage  quoted  on 
a  previous  page,  de   carne  Chr.  2,  the  words, 
"tot   originalia   instrumenta  Christi,  Marcion, 
delere  ausus  es,"  are  used  in  direct  relation  to 
the  first  chapters  of  Matthew  and  Luke.     Adv. 


TEBTULLIAN'S   TESTIMONY.  115 

Marcioii  iv.  5  he  complains  of  Marcioii  on  the 
ground  that  instead  of  availing  himself  of  Luke 
(a  Gospel  at  second  hand),  he  did  not  at  once 
take  up  those  whose  authoi'ity  (^as  the  work  of 
actual  apostles)  he  knew  to  be  higher.®^  De 
earn.  Christ.  3,  he  says,  "  If  thou  hadst  not  pur- 
posely rejected  or  changed  the  reading  of  the 
writings  which  are  opposed  to  thy  system,  the 
Gospel  of  John  would  surely  have  convinced 
thee  in  this  matter."  We  find  attention  called 
finally  to  an  epistle  of  Marcion,  from  the  con- 
tents of  which  Tertullian  establishes  conclu- 
sively the  fact  that  Marcion  once  accepted  what 
he  subsequently  rejected.^*' 

From  all  this  it  is  established  with  the  utmost 
certainty  that  Tertullian  subjected  Marcion  to 
weighty  reproaches  for  rejecting  the  Gospels 
(including  John,  once  expressly  named)  which 
he  had  once  accepted,  and  which  Tertullian,  in 
common  with  the  church,  continued  to  hold. 
An  epit^tle  of  Marcion  which  he  thought  might 
possibly  be  disavowed  by  the  followers  of  Mar- 
cion ^^  served  to  show  him  what  was  the  charac- 
ter of  the  man.  The  question  naturally  comes 
8 


114  ORIGIN   OF   THE  FOUR    GQSPELS. 

up,  Is  Tertullian  entitled  to  credibility  in  this 
affair  ? 

It  is  now  difficult  to  set  aside  the  claims  of 
those  who  have  enacted  the  history  of  the  prim- 
itive Christian  church,  on  a  basis  of  anti-ecclesi- 
astical prejudices  and  fancies.  Polemical  zeal, 
united  with  a  certain  passionate  force  of  con- 
viction, sometimes  carried  the  great  African 
polemic  too  far,  and  made  him  unjust  to  the 
heretical  opponents  whom  he  had  to  confute. 
But  is  this  general  fact  enough  to  warrant  us 
in  crying  out  that  here  he  is  making  false  in- 
ferences ?  Men  have  even  the  hardihood  to  say 
—  for  shamelessness  is  now  an  extinct  idea  — 
that  what  Tertullian  states  with  all  correctness 
must  be  set  to  the  account  of  "  malicious  per- 
secution."^^ That  what  Tertullian  advances 
finds  powerful  support  in  Iren^eus  is  plain  ;  but 
when  the  clearest  and  most  evident  matters  are 
made  to  assume  an  obscure  appearance,  how 
much  easier  to  bring  under  suspicion  the  pas- 
sages from  Irenasus,  which  hint  at  more  than 
they  openly  express.  Is  anything  plainer  than 
that  the  reform  ®^  which  Marcion  endeavored  to 


TERTULLIAN  AND   MARC  ION.  115 

carry  into  the  Gospels  aimed  specifically  at  cor- 
recting the  canonical  writings  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament? Did  TertuUian  need  the  help  of 
schoolmasters  more  than  we  do,  to  know  that 
"  evangclinm  "  has  other  meanings  than  a  writ- 
ten record  ?  And  is  the  accusation  brought 
against  Marcion,  that  he  rejected  the  apostolic 
records,  which  were  well  known  to  him,  and 
which  even  bore  the  authenticated  names  of 
apostles,  and  that  he  made  arbitrary  changes  in 
Luke  as  well  as  in  the  Pauline  Episcles,  any- 
thing else  than  empty  inference  ?  And  why  is 
this  attempt  made  ?  Is  not  the  object  to  get 
rid  of  the  truth,  to  undermine  and  destroy  the 
force  of  one  of  the  most  important  mea:is  of 
substantiating  the  primitive  authority  of  our 
Gospels,  more  especially  that  of  John  ?  Those 
readers  who  are  not  specially  engaged  in  prose- 
cuting learned  researches  need  nothing  more 
than  what  has  already  been  given  to  qualify 
them  for  passing  judgment  on  this  matter. 
Sucli  readers  ought  to  use  every  occasion  to  as- 
certian  what  the  character  of  the  learning  is, 


116      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

which  those  professors  sustain  who  make  it  their 
task  to  decry  the  authenticity  of  the  Gospels. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  phenomena  in 
the  church,  and  one  of  lasting  influence,  was 
Montanism.  Its  aim  was  to  stem  the  violent 
tide  of  Gnosticism,  which  was  swamping  the 
simple  older  faith  with  philosophic  speculation, 
and  sought  to  henefit  men  by  giving  them  a 
deep  inward  and  direct  apprehension  of  divine 
truth.  Taking  a  stand  not  only  against  foreign 
speculations  but  equally  against  the  traditional 
deadness  of  an  external  ecclesiasticism,  it,  like 
Gnosticism,  at  length  shot  above  the  church 
through  its  exaltation  of  a  fanatical  spirit  of 
prophecy,  above  the  tranquil  and  orderly  devel- 
opment of  Christianity  through  doctrines  of  the 
new  birth  and  spiritual  illumination. 

If,  following  the  object  wdiich  I  have  in  view, 
we  ask  what  place  Montanism  took  in  relation 
to  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  the  way  of  finding  an  an- 
swer lies  in  the  fact  that  we  are  scarcely  in  a 
position  to  make  a  general  discrimination  be- 
tween the  form  which  had  been  given  at  the  end 


MONTANISM.  117 

of  the  second  century  by  means  of  Tertullian's 
reformatory  character,  to  the  theological  sys- 
tem then  existing,  and  that  which  it  had  as- 
sumed at  the  outset  in  Syria.  The  account 
given  by  Eusebius,  although  drawn  from  frag- 
ments dating  from  the  comparatively  recent  time 
of  Marcus  Aurelius  (161  to  180),  and  that  of 
Epiphanius,  which  aimed  more  distinctively  at 
a  confutation  of  opponents,  are  of  a  very  in- 
complete character.  The  little  which  Irenseus 
has  respecting  this  matter  is  hinted  at  in  such 
various  fashion  that  one  hint  only  darkens  the 
meaning  of  another.  The  scanty  allusions  in 
the  Philosophumena  of  Hippolytus  give  rise  to 
the  suspicion  that  they  relate  rather  to  Tertid- 
lian's  epoch  than  to  the  beginning  of  Montan- 
ism  in  the  year  150. 

The  distinctive  question  which  meets  ns  here 
is  this :  Has  Montanism  from  the  very  first  ap- 
propriated to  itself,  independently  of  John's 
Gospel,  that  prophetic  spirit  which  was  poured 
out,  as  is  averred,  on  Montanus,  his  female  com- 
panions, and  his  followers,  and  which  stood  in 
intimate  connection  with  the  Paraclete  which 


118      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

was  promised  by  tbe  Saviour  to  his  disciples 
(John  xiv.  16,  26)  ?  The  wanton  character  of 
Phrygian  fanaticism  leads  us  to  suspect  that 
the  letter  of  Scripture  was  held  in  no  regard ; 
and  the  extracts  quoted  in  Eusebius  (v.  16  to 
19),  as  well  as  the  document  of  Epiphanius, 
contain  nothing  which  can  give  us  any  light  in 
this  matter.  It  is  quite  otherwise  with  what 
Eusebius,  and,  long  before  him,  Irenaeus  and 
Hippolytus  record.^^  In  Irenaeus  (iii.  11,  9) 
we  read:  "  But  others,  in  order  to  do  away  with 
the  gift  of  the  Spirit,  which,  according  to  the 
counsel  of  the  Father,  is  poured  out  on  all  flesh, 
do  not  accept  that  promise  made  in  the  Gospel 
of  John,  that  the  Lord  will  send  down  the  Para- 
'clete,  casting  away  not  only  this  prophetic  gift, 
but  the  Gospel  as  well  which  records  its  send- 
ing. It  is  truly  their  misfortune  that,  while 
granting  that  there  are  false  prophets,  they  yet 
deny  to  the  church  the  true  and  real  gift  of 
prophecy ;  it  is  with  them  as  with  those  who, 
because  there  are  hypocrites  in  the  church,  with- 
hold themselves  from  all  fraternal  converse  with 
the  brethren."  ^^    The  reference  of  this  passage 


MONTANISM.  119 

to  the.  Montanists  we  hold  in  common  with 
Lucke  and  others  as  not  at  all  made  ont;^^  but 
we  regard  the  argument  as  conclusive,  that  the 
opponents  of  the  Montanists,  wittily  called  by 
Epiphanius,  in  a  double  use  of  language,  Alo- 
gians,  are  meant.  Epiphanius  also  bears  evi- 
dence that  the  Alogians  rejected  the  Gospel 
and  the  Apocalypse  of  John.  But  if  it  is  a  real 
characteristic  of  the  opponents  of  Montanism, 
that  they  rejected  John's  Gospel,  it  is  entirely 
probable  that  this  was  the  result  of  the  connec- 
tion between  the  prophetic  Spirit  of  the  Montan- 
ists and  the  Paraclete  of  that  Gospel.  It  is  not 
credible  that  the  Alogians  first  brought  this 
connection  into  view;  according  to  the  words 
of  Irenaeus,  previously  cited,  it  is  certain  that  he 
was  already  of  the  opinion  that  the  Alogians 
had  rejected  this  Gospel  simply  because  of  this 
connection,  and  because  it  seemed  to  be  drawn 
from  John.  Irenaeus  may  be  incorrect  in  his 
supposition  that  this  was  the  only  or  the  main 
ground  for  the  Alogians'  rejection^'  of  this  Gos- 
pel ;  but  Epiphanius  bears  witness  that  they 
could  not  account  for  the  want  of  accordance 


120  ORiam  OF  the  four  gospels. 

between  John's  and  the  synoptic  Gospels.  To 
me,  however,  it  seems  to  be  necessarily  inferred 
from  the  statements  of  Irenaeus  that  he  presup- 
poses that  the  Montanists  themselves  brought 
their  prophetical  Spirit  into  harmony  with  the 
Paraclete  of  John's  Gospel,  and  therefore  made 
use  of  the  latter  document.  Lastly,  we  have  a 
statement  of  Hippolytus  hinted  at ;  it  is  found 
in  the  Philosoph.  viii.  19,  and  runs  as  follows: 
"  The  Phrygian  heresiarchs  have  been  infatu- 
ated by  Priscilla  and  Maximilla,  whom  they  hold 
to  be  prophetesses  because  they  aver  that  the 
Paraclete  has  entered  into  them." 

How  then  lies  the  matter  ?  The  short  ex- 
tracts given  by  Eusebius  from  the  writings  of 
early  opponents  contain  nothing  in  reference 
to  the  connection  between  the  Montanists' 
prophetical  Spirit  and  the  Paraclete  of  John  ; 
no  more  do  the  refutations  of  Epiphanius  ;  but 
Irenaeus,  Hippolytus,  Tertullian,^^  and  Eusebius 
are  united  in  averring  that  this  connection  did 
exist ;  and  the  fact  that  the  Alogians  rejected 
the  Gospel  of  John,  according  to  the  statement 
of    Irenaeus,   assuredly    harmonizes   with    the 


MONTANISM.  121 

honor  which  was  paid  by  the  Montaiiists  to  this 
Gospel. 

Yet  there  has  been  the  same  effort  to  pervert 
the  relation  of  Montauism  to  John's  Gospel  as 
in  the  system  of  Valentine ;  at  least  the  snspi- 
cion  has  been  bruited  that  that  Gospel  could 
only  have  emanated  from  the  same  circle  of 
theological  ideas  and  be  the  result  of  the  same 
movement  which  gave  rise  to  Montanism.  What 
a  chaotic  confusion  of  thoughts  is  there  in  such 
a  charge  as  this !  what  a  senseless  opposition  to 
John's  credibility  is  betrayed  in  the  effort  to 
pervert  and  falsify  the  evidences  which  go  to  es- 
tablish his  authenticity !  Let  us  suppose  for  a 
minute  that  John's  Gospel  sprang  into  exist- 
ence like  Montanism  about  the  year  150.  De 
spite  the  fact  that  tlie  lateness  of  its  appearance 
must  make  it  seem  like  the  work  of  a  pious 
fraud,  and  that  in  its  whole  structure  and  in 
its  details  it  was  unlike  the  earlier  Gospels,  the 
church,  no  less  than  those  who  opposed  the 
church,  and  especially  tlie  Montanists,  accepted 
it  with  full  confidence.  To  one  little  sect  alone 
did  it  fall  to  raise  difficulties  between  the  older 

3 


122  0RIGI2T  OF   THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

Gospel  and  the  more  recent  one,  and  in  conse 
quence  to  reject  the  latter,  and  yet  without 
gaining  either  credit  or  prominence  by  the  act. 
And  is  it  true  that  there  is  clear  accordance  be-, 
tween  the  Montanist  doctrine  and  that  of  John's 
Gospel  ?  Not  in  the  least.  Aside  from  the 
fact  that  the  points  where  they  harmonize  re- 
late almost  exclusively  to  the  idea  of  the  Para- 
clete (an  idea  which  appears  in  the  Gospel 
without  any  full  development,  while  in  Mon- 
tanism  we  are  directed  rather  to  the  catholic- 
izing notions  entertained  by  TertuUian  than 
to  those  held  earlier),  the  divergence  be- 
tween Montanism  and  John's  Gospel  is  as  great 
as  that  between  an  ecclesiastic  prototype  and 
a  heretical  copy. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  opponents  of  Montan- 
ism already  named  give  noticeable  testimony 
against  this  and  similar  depreciations  of  John's 
Gospel  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  at 
the  time  of  the  Montanist  movement.  Tliey 
knew  nothing  about  the  story  of  the  Gospel  of 
John  being  a  new  thing  first  ushered  into  be- 
ing in  their  time ;  tliey  ascribed  both  the  Gos- 


MONTANISM.  123 

pel  and  the  Apocalypse  as  unwortliy  of  the 
church  (Epiph.  haer.  51,  3)  to  Corinth,  a  co- 
temporary  of  John.^^  The  very  opponents  of 
the  book,  therefore,  did  not  doubt  about  its  age, 
nor  bring  it  under  suspicion ;  they  always  as- 
cribed it  to  the  epoch  in  which  John  lived. 
Does  not  this  show  that  the  church  had  long 
used  that  Gospel,  and  th'at  on  that  account 
there  was  no  opening  for  objections  to  it  on  the 
ground  of  age  ?  It  is  to  be  noticed  at  the  same 
time  that  the  same  heretics  consider  the  Gos- 
pel and  the  Apocalypse  as  coherent  productions, 
and  that  they  acted  as  one  man  in  disowning 
John,  and  in  claiming  Corinth  as  the  author. 
The  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse,  expressly 
stated  by  Justin  to  be  the  production  of  John, 
has  not  been  doubted  even  by  the  Tiibingen 
critics  to  be  the  work  of  John.  From  the  acts 
of  the  anti-Montanists,  however,  it  is  to  be  in- 
ferred that  the  conviction  and  usage  of  the 
church  agreed  in  ascribing  both  writings,  the 
Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse,  to  John. 

In  this  way,  as  the  reader  can  perceive,  even 
the  heretics  of  the  first  half  of  the  second  cen- 


124  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

tury  and  tlie  beginning  of  the  second  half  do 
good  service  in  helping  us  ascertain  the  truth 
regarding  the  antiquity  of  our  Gospels.  We 
hold  it  impossible,  without  resorting  to  sophistry 
and  falsification,  to  do  away  with  the  testimony 
which  these  heretics  bear  to  the  credibility  of 
our  Gospels,  and  especially  to  that  of  John. 

TVe  now  advance  •  a  step  beyond  the  church 
to  the  territory  where  we  encounter  the  armed 
opponents  of  Christianity,  the  men  to  whom 
the  whole  preaching  of  the  cross  was  folly  and 
an  offense.  At  that  very  time  when  the  Gnos- 
tic errorists  were  throwing  the  church  into 
into  such  confusion,  it  happened  that  one 
of  these  opponents,  Celsus  by  name,  wrote  a 
book  full  of  mockery  and  scorn  at  Christianity. 
This  production  perished  long  ago  ;  but  so  far 
from  doing  any  harm  to  Christianity,  it  proved 
to  be  a  great  gain,  for  it  impelled  Origen  to  write 
his  powerful  and  learned  defense  of  Christian- 
ity. From  Origen's  work  we  draw  enough  to 
make  us  certain  that  in  his  attacks  on  the 
Chris.tian  faith  Celsus  made  ample  use  of  our 
Gospels,  and  that  he  drew  from  them  the  mate- 


CELSUS.  125 

rials  which  lie  needed  in  making  his  attaclcs. 
In  what  he  says  respecting  the  appearance  of 
angels  at  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  he  probahly 
refers  to  all  four  of  the  Gospels ;  for  he  sa3^s 
that  according  to  some  there  were  two  angels, 
according  to  others,  four  at  the  grave  (5,  bQ'). 
Origen  supposed  that  the  first  referred  to  Luke 
and  John,  the  last  to  Matthew  and  Mark.  Pro- 
ceeding in  a  different  and  more  definite  way  to 
work,  he  drew  into  the  circle  of  his  criticism 
various  passages  from  the  synoptical  Gospels, 
especially  Matthew's,  and  also  some  from  that 
of  John.  Among  those  from  the  synoptical  Gos- 
pels may  be  mentioned  the  account  of  the  wise 
men  from  the  East  (whom  he  calls  Chaldeans), 
the  story  of  the  slaughter  of  the  children  by 
Herod  (1,  58),  the  flight  into  Egypt  at  the  bid- 
ding of  the  angel  (1,  60),  the  appearance  of  the 
dove  at  the  baptism  (1,  40),  the  son  of  the  Vir- 
gin (1,40),  the  direction  which  Jesus  gives  to 
his  disciples  (Matt.  x.  23),  "when  they  perse- 
cute you  in  this  city,  flee  ye  into  another  "  (1, 
65),  the  grief  at  Gethsemane  (2,  24),  the  thirst 
on  the  cross  (2,  37),  the  saying  of  Jesus  that  it 


126      ORIGIN  OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

is  easier  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  etc. 
—  which  he  supposes  to  be  a  motto  of  Plato  in  a 
changed  form  (6,  16), — the  command  of  Jesus 
(Matt.  V.  39  ;  Luke  vi.  29),  "  Whosoever  shall 
smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the 
other  also,"  which  he  also  supposes  to  be  a  modi- 
fied Platonism.  Examples  of  a  reference  to  John 
are,  his  statement  (1,  67)  that  the  Jews  in  the 
temple  demanded  a  sign  of  Jesus  (John  ii.  18), 
that  he  accepts  John's  expression  "  Logos"  to 
designate  Jesus  as  the  Word  of  God  (2,  31),  that 
he  ridicules  (2,  36)  the  statement  that  at  the 
crucifixion  blood  issued  from  Jesus'  side  (John 
xix.  34),  and  that  he  asserts  (2,  59)  that  after 
his  resurrection  Jesus  displayed  his  pierced 
hands  as  the  token  of  what  he  had  endured 
(John  XX.  27).  It  can  not  be  claimed,  in  view 
of  this,  that  Celsus  drew  all  these  assertions  from 
living  Christian  tradition  ;  for  he  himself  is  the 
very  one  to  lay  stress  upon  the  fact  that  he 
drew  upon  the  writings  of  the  Christians.  His 
words  were,  as  cited  literally  by  Origen  (2,  74), 
from  his  own  writings :  "  And  this  we  have 
drawn  from  your  own  books ;  we  want  no  fur- 


CELSUS.  127 

ther  evidence,  and  you  are  impaled  on  your 
own  sword."  Origen  remarks  appositely  that 
Celsus  has  indeed  broudit  forward  much  that 
was  not  in  the  Gospels,  especially  some  blasphe- 
mous reports  about  Mary,  and  some  idle  stories 
about  the  infancy  of  Christ;  these  may  be  found 
alluded  to  in  the  first  book  which  Origen  wrote 
contra  Celsumi^o  (1,  28  and  32).  But  in 
the  course  of  his  work  Celsus  carried  out  his 
idea^°^  of  adhering  closely  to  the  "  writings  of 
the  disciples  of  Jesus."  And  plainly  this  was 
done  out  of  respect  to  the  fact  that  these  writ- 
ings, and  these  alone,  had  authority  in  the 
church. 

The  question  here  arises,  What  relation  to  the 
witness  which  Celsus  bears  to  the  authority  of 
our  Gospels  is  sustained  by  that  criticism  which 
does  not  accept  that  authority,  so  far  especially 
as  John  is  concerned  ?  As  that  evidence  can 
not  be  impugned,  unbelieving  scholars  bring 
into  use  again  here  that  modernizing  system 
which  crops  into  view  in  Herakleon,  to  the  per- 
fect shame  of  him  who  first  made  it  current. 
As  in  Herakleon,  so  here,  the  story  runs,  Celsus 


128      ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

was  the  cotemporary  of  Origen.  But  when  was 
that  important  fact  ascertained  ?  Drawing 
from  Origen  himself,  Dr.  Yolkmar^^^  says,  "Has 
not  Origen  declared  at  the  close  of  his  work 
(8,  76)  that  the  same  Celsus  announced  that  he 
would  publish  a  work  of  more  jiositive  charac- 
ter, and  that  we  must  wait  to  see  whether  he 
would  accomplish  the  undertaking  ?  Origen 
(254)  may  have  written  his  book  against  Celsus 
about  the  middle  of  the  first  half  of  the  third 
century.  Nothing  is  plainer  than  that  Cel 
sus,  if  he  were  alive  at  that  time  and  giving 
men  to  understand  that  a  new  work  might  be 
expected  from  his  pen,  has  no  importance  to  us 
in  helping  us  settle  this  matter.  •  But  even  here 
we  have  to  deal  with  nothing  but  a  piece  of 
wretched  trickery,  with  real  poverty  of  resources 
on  the  part  of  the  critics  whom  I  complain  of. 
For  the  statement  borrowed  from  the  close  of  the 
work  against  Celsus  rests  upon  gross  ignorance 
or  upon  purposed  deception.  The  words  of 
Origen  to  his  patron  Ambrosius,  who  had  stim- 
ulated him  to  write  the  whole  Apology,  run 
after  this  wise :  "  Know  that  Celsus  promised 


CELSUS.  129 

[unquestionably  in  his  book  directed  against 
Christianity,  and  opposed  by  Origen]  to  write 
still  another  work  in  which  "...."  If  now 
he  has  not  written  this,  in  spite  of  his  promise^"' 
it  is  enough  for  us  to  answer  him  with  these 
eight  books.  But  if  he  has  done  this,  and  com- 
pleted ^°*  his  later  work,  do  you  hunt  it  up  and 
send  it  to  me,  that  I  may  answer  it,"  etc.  Tlie 
difficulty  to  account  for  is  in  the  words,  "we 
nmst  wait  to  see  whether  he  would  accomplish 
tlie  undertaking."  But  at  the  outset,  in  the 
very  first  book,  Origsn  says,  "  I  do  not  know  of 
a  single  Christian  whose  faith  is  in  peril  of  be- 
ing endangered  by  Celsus,  a  man  no  longer 
among  the  living,  but  who  has  been  a  long 
time  numbered  among  the  dead."  They  for- 
got, of  course,  to  cut  out  this  passage  with  the 
scissors  which  had  been  so  effectually  applied 
to  Polycarp.  In  that  same  first  book  Origen 
says,  "  We  have  learned  that  there  have  been 
two  men  bearing  the  name  of  Celsus,  the  first 
under  Nero,  the  second  [i.  e,  ours]  under  Ha- 
drian and  later."  It  is  not  impossible  that 
Origen  erred  in  identifying  his  Celsus  with  the 


130      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

Epicurean  who  lived  "under  Hadrian  and  la- 
ter;" but  it  is  impossible  to  make  the  Celsu's  of 
whom  Origen  thus  speaks,  his  cotemporary. 
Could  Origen  have  made  Celsus  in  his  first  book 
to  be  "  under  Hadrian  and  later"  (117  to  138), 
and  in  the  eighth  have  said  of  the  same  man, "  we 
must  wait  to  see  [about  225]  whether  he  will 
accomplish  his  undertaking  ?  "  So  long  there- 
fore as  we  get  no  more  reliable  information  re- 
specting Celsus,  we  must  remain  content  with 
believing  that  he  wrote  his  work  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  second  century,  perhaps  between  150 
and  160  ;  ^°^  and  that  his  testimony  in  favor  of 
the  sy.noptic  and  Johannean  Gospels  dates  from 
that  period,  —  a  fact  of  very  great  weight  in  en- 
abling us  to  determine  the  early  existence  of 
the  evangelical  canon. 

With  this  result,  however,  we  by  no  means 
reach  the  limits  of  the  history  of  Apologies  for 
tlie  Gospels.  In  order  to  complete  this  depart- 
ment of  our  subject,  we  now  enter  upon  a  pecu- 
liar branch  of  the  literature  of  the  same  age 
with  that  with  which  we  have  been  dealing, — 
a  branch  which,  after  long  neglect,  is  in  our 


APOCRYPHAL    LITERATURE.    .  131 

day  claiming  new  and  respectful  attention ; 
viz.,  the  New  Testament  apocryplial  literature. 
This  holds  a  certain  position  midway  between 
the  literature  of  the  church  and  that  of  the 
heresiarchs :  at  any  rate,  many  of  its  features 
served  the  ends  of  the  former  through  the  use 
of  the  latter.  It  is  necessary,  however,  that  I 
should  instruct  the  reader  what  the  theologians 
understand  by  the  term  "apocrypha."  The 
apocryplial  writings  of  the  New  Testament — for 
it  is  of  these  only  that  I  speak  —  are  writings 
wliich  aimed  to  take  their  place  on  the  same 
footing  with  the  writings  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, but  which  were  rejected  by  the  church. 
They  bore  on  the  face  of  them  the  names  of 
apostles,  or  of  otlier  eminent  men ;  but  these 
names  have  been  misappropriated  by  unknown 
writers  for  the  purpose  of  recommending  what 
they  wrote.  The  Apocrypha  were  written,  partly 
in  order  to  develop  in  arbitrary  fashion  what 
their  authors  had  drawn  from  Scripture,  partly 
to  incorporate  unauthenticated  accounts  of  the 
Saviour,  Mary,  Joseph,  and  the  apostles,  and 
partly  to  give  point  and  eiBcacy  to  heretical 


132       ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

opinions  directed  against  Holy  Writ.  The 
church  was  warranted,  therefore,  in  excluding 
them  from  her  accepted  writings.  It  is  true 
that  they  have  been  revered  as  authentic  by 
many  from  the  earliest  times  ;  and  on  this  ac- 
count they  have  a  varied  interest  ^^*^  to  readers. 
I  have  indicated  elsewhere  in  what  sense  I 
propose  to  use  them :  they  only  support  and 
strengthen  our  evidence  of  the  very  early  origin 
of  our  Gospels.  We  are,  of  course,  independ- 
ent of  the  question  how  old  the  apocrypha  are ; 
and  this  has  left  an  opening  into  which  opponents 
have  pressed,  hoping  to  cut  us  off  on  this  side. 
But  we  have  come  to  the  result  that  the  two 
portions  of  the  apocryphal  Gospels  which  are 
extant  now,  known  as  the  Protevangel  of 
James  and  the  Acts  of  Pilate,  must  have  been 
written  within  the  three  first  decades  of  the 
second  century,  and  that  the  main  substance  of 
'  those  works  (though  marred  by  many  changes 
in  the  text)  is  now  in  our  possession. 

The  chief,  if  not  the  only,  evidence  for  the 
age  of  both  of  these  writings  is  found  in  Justin. 
And  first  with  regard  to  the  Protevangel  of 


APOCllYI'IIAL   LITERATURE.  133 

James.  In  Justin's  Dialogue  witli  the  Jew 
Trjphon,  and  in  his  first  Apology,  we  find  in 
the  statements  respecting  the  birth  of  Jesus 
and  the  annunciation  traces  of  a  knowledge^ 
and  of  the  influence,  of  the  book  of  James. 
Justin  relates  in  the  Dialogue  (cap.  78)  that 
the  birth  of  Jesus  occurred  in  a  cavern  near 
the  village,  there  being  no  room  at  the  inn. 
This  statement,  which  confirms  the  account  of 
Luke  instead  of  contradicting  it,  is  contained 
in  the  book  of  James,  and  is  woven  into  the 
substance  of  the  whole  history  of  the  event. 
Still,  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that  Justin 
appropriates  only  this  single  fragment  respect- 
ing the  birth  in  the  cave,  and  in  the  rest  fol- 
lows Luke  rather  than  the  pseudo-James.  The 
statement  respecting  the  want  of  room  in  Beth- 
lehem coheres  strictly  with  the  narrative  of 
Luke,  but  is  not  in  accord  with  that  of  the 
pseudo-James.  Similarly,  the  annunciation  is 
plainly  hinted  in  the  first  Apology,  although 
w^ith  a  free  following  of  Luke,  with  the  mere 
difierence  that  the  words,  "  For  he  shall  save 
his  people  from  their  sins,"  are  connected  with 


134      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  words  directed  to  Mary,  "  And  thou  shalt 
call  his  name  Jesus."  In  Luke  they  are  want- 
ing altogether,  and  in  Matthew  they  belong  to 
t\\Q  message  announced  to  Joseph.  And  have 
we  not  a  recognition  of  what  is  apocryphal  in 
Justin,  since,  at  the  close  of  his  exposition,  he 
appeals  to  those  who  have  declared  everything 
respecting  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  ?  But  no, 
that  can  not  be  said ;  for  the  whole  account 
of  Justin,  as  already  remarked,  corresponds 
strictly  to  Luke,  and  not  to  the  Protevangel, 
only  with  this  difference,  that  the  passage  indi- 
cated varies  from  the  Protevangel,  Matthew 
giving  the  words  as  announced  to  Joseph,  and 
Justin  as  addressed  to  Mary.  This  feature 
must,  in  my  opinion,  be  ascribed  to  the  perusal 
of  the  Protevangel ;  and  in  the  recollection  of 
Justin  it  connected  itself  with  Luke's  account 
without  his  own  consciousness  of  the  fact.  It 
is  unmistakable  that  the  whole  quotation  was 
made  from  memory. ^^^  In  the  Dialogue  (chap. 
100),  the  annunciation  made  to  Mary  is  cited, 
and  the  words  spring  from  Luke,  and  not  from 
the  Protevangel. ^^^     At  the  same  time,  there  is 


THE   PROTEVANGEL.  135 

a  single  extract  bearing  relation  to  the  mental 
state  ot*  Mary,  which  seems  to  have  sprung 
from  a  recollection  of  a  passage  in  the  Prote- 
vangel ;  only  Justin  has  connected  it  with  the 
reply  of  Mary  to  the  address  of  the  angel,  while 
the  Protevangel  joins  it  to  a  priestly  blessing 
which  she  received  just  on  the  point  of  setting 
out  to  visit  Elizabeth.^o^ 

But  is  there  no  objection  urged  against  our 
endeavor  to  substantiate  an  acquaintance  of 
Justin  with  the  Protevangel  ?  Certainly  there 
are  lost  writings  which  are  brought  into  requi- 
sition. Out  of  one  of  these  it  is  supposed  that 
Justin  can  just  as  well  have  drawn  as  that  the 
Protevangel  be  derived  from  it.  The  Gnostic 
ytvva  MuQiag  (de  generatione  Mariae),  and  still 
more  the  Gospel  of  Peter,^^*'  have  been  thought 
to  be  that  ancient  work  freshly  brought  to 
light.  And  this  brings  us  into  renewed  contact 
with  an  old  acquaintance,  with  that  same  fac- 
ulty of  making  new  discoveries  of  which  I  have 
already  had  occasion  to  speak.  In  order  to 
escape  the  force  of  a  work  lying  plainly  before 
our  eyes,  the  inferences  from  which   are  un- 


136      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GVSPELS. 

mistakable,  it  is  held  in  the  light  of  a  copy  of  a 
perished  work,  of  wliich  we  have  received  from 
the  past  little  but  the  title  and  a  few  meager 
extracts,  which  render  it  impossible  to  set  solid 
facts  over  against  the  play  of  fancy.  Yet  let 
us  look  into  this  matter  as  closely  as  we 
can.  Epiphanius^^^  has  given  the  first  impulse 
toward  bringing  the  Gnostic  production  already 
mentioned  into  relation  with  the  Protevangel,  in 
citinj?  somethino;  of  what  he  calls  the  "  shock- 
ing "  statements  of  the  work ;  namely,  that 
there  appeared  to  Zacharias  in  the  temple  the 
vision  of  a  man  wearing  the  form  of  an  ass. 
Upon  which  Zacharias  went  up  to  him  and  tried 
to  say,  Woe  to  you  I  whom  are  you  worship- 
ing ?  but  could  not  utter  the  words,  the  man 
seen  in  the  vision  having  struck  him  dumb. 
But  when  his  mouth  was  opened,  and  he  had 
communicated  to  others  what  he  had  seen,  he 
was  instantly  put  to  death.  This  fragment 
from  the  lost  book  is  enough,  I  should  think, 
to  identify  its  source.  And  is  there  that  in  it 
which  enables  us  to  determine  that  it  was  the 
basis  of  the  Protevan^-el  ?     The  last  has  noth- 


THE    PnOTEVANGEL.  137 

ing  in  common  with  the  first,  excepting  the 
slaughter  of  Zacharias,  but  wholly  on  another 
ground,  and  under  altogether  dififerent  condi- 
tions. But  there  is  help  at  hand  against  accu- 
mulating difficulties  respecting  the  connection 
of  both  writings.  The  way  is  to  conjure  up 
and  thrust  into  prominence  a  work  which 
claims  to  have  given  rise  to  that  of  James. 
From  the  Gnostic  book  relating  to  Mary  sprang 
this  Gnostic-tinged  —  now  unfortunately  lost  — 
primitive  foundation  of  the  pseudo-James  ;  and 
from  this  ag-ain  the  work  of  our  catholicizing 
James. ^^^  This  ingenious  solution  may  not 
have  quite  satisfied  even  him  who  hit  upon  it, 
and  hence  he  thought  out  and  gave  preference 
to  another  combination.  In  the  passage  where 
Origen  alludes  to  the  work  of  James,  he  men- 
tions the  Gospel  of  Peter ;  for  he  says  the 
brothers  of  Jesus  were  regarded  by  some,  who 
followed  the  tradition  of  the  Gospel  of  Peter, 
or  that  of  James's  work,  as  if  they  had  been 
the  sons  of  Joseph  by  a  previous  marriage. ^^'^ 
Now,  according  to  this  new  combination,  the 
question  is  asked,  Can  not  the  Gospel  of  Peter, 


138      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

or  the  early  history  given  in  it,  be  the  basis  of 
the  Protevangel  ?  The  primitive  history  in  the 
Gospel  of  Peter  rests  exclusively  upon  the  pas- 
sage of  Origen  relating  to  the  brothers  of  Jesus 
as  the  sons  of  Joseph  by  an  earlier  marriage. 
With  reference  to  this,  we  read  without  going 
further.  That  there  was  such  a  primitive  his- 
tory, can,  according  to  the  statement  of  Origen, 
be  regarded  as  beyond  doubt.  From  the  same 
passage  of  Origen,  the  conclusion  is  drawn  that 
"  in  the  Protevangel  of  James  the  primitive  his- 
tory of  the  Gospel  of  Peter  is  contained."  But 
do  the  words  of  Origen,  "  while  they  followed 
the  tradition  of  the  Gospel  of  Peter,  or  that  of 
the  work  of  James,"  warrant  the  inference  in 
the  least  that. the  latter  coincides  and  gives 
support  to  the  primitive  history  of  the  Gospel 
of  Peter  ?  But  who  is  a))le  to  impose  a  check 
upon  the  unbridled  fanaticism  of  theorists  ?  "* 
Tliat  we  are  now  in  possession  of  nearly  fifty 
Greek  manuscripts,  comprising,  among  other 
things,  a  Syrian  copy  of  the  work  under  discus- 
sion, dating  from  the  sixth  century,  and  that 
no  one  of  the  evidences  of  its  antiquity,  from 


THE    PROTEVANGEL.  139 

Origen  down,  is  contradictory  to  the  text  of 
these  manuscripts,  gives  us  assuredly  a  good 
right  to  hold  fast  to  the  conviction  that  this 
was  the  writing  so  familiar  to  the  ancients,^^^ 
and  so  mucli  used  by  them.  Is  not  that  the 
most  untenable  of  hypotheses,  that  our  work 
was  derived  from  one  which  was  used  by  the 
ancients  where  it  coincides  with  our  own,  but 
of  which  not  a  trace  remains?  And  what  other 
end  does  this  hypothesis  subserve  than  this,  to 
set  aside  the  inferences  which  are  drawn  from 
the  book  of  James,  and  applied  not  only  to  the 
Christian  literature  of  the  second  century,  but 
more  especially  to  the  history  of  the  Gospel 
cause  ?  I  trust  it  will  not  impel  those  who  do 
not  share  these  views,  to  regard  hypotheses 
which  have  such  a  basis  to  rest  upon  as  some- 
thing else  than  they  really  are.  In  opposition 
to  them,  I  am  still  justified  in  insisting  that  the 
imdeniable  connection  between  Justin  and  sev- 
eral passages  of  the  so-called  Proto-Gospcl  pre- 
supposes his  acquaintance  with  this  very  pro- 
duction. The  book  of  James  stands,  in  its 
whole    tendency,    in    such   a   relation   to   our 


140  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

canonical  Gospels,  that  the  latter  must  have 
been  diffused  a  long  time,  and  must  have  been 
accepted  a  long  time  before  the  former  was  dis- 
covered. The  allusions  of  Matthew  and  Luke 
to  the  virgin  mother  of  the  Lord  were  unable 
to  prevent  the  belief  in  a  real  son  of  Joseph 
and  Mary,  —  an  idea  consonant  with  the  taste  of 
the  Judaized  Christian  heresiarchs :  the  men- 
tion of  the  brothers  of  Jesus  in  the  synoptic 
Gospels  appeared  to  bear  evidence  against  Mat- 
thew and  Luke ;  learned  Jews  brought  against 
the  Christians  the  charge  of  arbitrarily  chang- 
ing the  meaning  of  Isaiah,  and  making  him 
support  the  notion  of  a  virgin  mother :  Jewish 
hostility  even  went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  Jesus 
was  the  illegitimate  son  of  one  Panthera,  and 
heathen  skeptics  quoted  Greek  fables  about 
sons  being  born  from  virgins,  in  order  to  dis- 
credit the  evangelical  account.  In  such  a  time 
as  was  the  first ,  half  of  the  second  century, 
nothing  could  promise  a  better  support  to  the 
Gospel  narrative  than  a  production  like  the  one 
named  after  James,  furnished  with  irrefragable 
historic  testimony  as  to  the  lofty  destiny  of 


THE   ACTS    OF   PILATE.  141 

Mary  from  her  birth,  as  to  her  motherhood 
while  a  virgin,  aud  as  to  a  relationship  of  Mary 
to  Joseph  exalted  far  above  the  usual  relations 
of  marriage."^  Now,  if  this  work  of  James 
falls  within  the  first  three  decades  of  the  sec- 
ond century,  the  composition  of  the  Gospels  of 
Matthew  and  Luke,  to  which  the  reference  of 
James's  work  limits  itself,  can  not  be  set  later 
than  the  last  decades  of  the  previous  century. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  second  apocryphal 
work  brought  under  review  above,  the  so-called 
Acts  of  Pilate,  only  with  the  difference  that 
they  refer  as  much  to  John  as  to  the  synoptical 
Gospels.  Justin,  in  like  manner  as  before,  is 
the  most  ancient  voucher  for  this  work,  which 
is  said  to  have  been  written  under  Pilate's 
jurisdiction,  and,  by  reason  of  its  specification 
of  wonderful  occurrences  before,  during,  and 
after  the  crucifixion,  to  have  borne  strong  evi- 
dence to  the  divinity  of  Christ.  Justin  saw  as 
little  reason  as  Tertullian  and  others  for  believ- 
ing that  it  was  a  work  of  pious  deception  from 
a  Christian  hand.  On  the  contrary,  Justin 
appeals  twice  to  it  in  his  first  Apology  in  order 


1.42  ORIGIN  OF   THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

to  confirm  the  accounts  of  the  occurrences 
which  took  pLace  at  tlie  crucifixion  in  accord- 
ance witli  prophecy,  and  of  the  miraculous 
healings  effected  by  Christ,  also  the  subject  of 
prophetic  announcement.  '  He  cites  specifically 
(chap.  35)  from  Isaiah  Ixv.  2,  and  Iviii.  2 :  "  I 
have  spread  out  my  hands  all  the  day  unto  a 
rebellious  people,  which  walketh  in  a  way  that 
was  not  good."  ..."  They  ask  of  me  the 
ordinances  of  justice  :  they  take  delight  in  ap- 
proaching to  God.  Further,  from  the  twenty- 
second  Psalm :  "  They  pierced  my  hands  and  my 
feet.  .  .  .  They  parted  my  garments  upon 
them,  and  cast  lots  upon  my  vesture."  Yv^ith 
reference  to  this,  he  remarks  that  Christ  fulfilled 
this;  that  he  did  stretch  forth  his  hands  when 
the  Jews  crucified  him,  —  the  men  who  con- 
tended against  him,  and  denied  that  he  was  the 
Christ.  "  Then,"  he  says  further,  "  as  the 
prophet  foretold,  they  dragged  him  to  the  judg- 
ment-seat, set  him  upon  it,  and  said, '  Judge  us.* 
The  expression,  however,  '  they  pierced,'  etc., 
refers  to  the  nails  with  wdiich  they  fasten.ed  his 
hands  and  his  feet  to  the  cross.    And  after  they 


THE    ACTS    OF   PILATE.  143 

had  crucified  him  they  threw  lots  for  liis  cU)th- 
ing,  .and  they  who  had  taken  part  in  the  act  of 
crucifixion  divided  it  among  themselves."  To 
this  he  adds :  "  And  you  can  learn  from  the 
Acts,  composed^''  during  the  governorship  of 
Pontius  Pilate,  that  these  things  really  hap- 
pened." Still  more  explicit  is  the  testimony 
of  Tertullian.  It  may  be  found  in  the  Apolo- 
geticus  (chap.  2),  where  he  says  that  out  of 
Qiwy  Jesus  was  surrendered  to  Pilate  hy  the 
Jewish  ceremonial  lawyers,  and  by  him,  after 
he  had  yielded  to  the  cries  of  the  people,  given 
over  for  crucifixion  ;  that  while  hanging  on  the 
cross  he  gave  up  the  ghost  with  a  loud  cry,  and 
so  anticipated  the  executioner's  duty ;  that  at 
that  same  hour  the  day  was  interrupted  by  a 
sudden  darkness  ;  that  a  guard  of  soldiers  was 
set  at  the  grave  for  the  purpose  of  preventing 
his  disciples  stealing  his  body,  since  he  had 
predicted  his  resurrection,  but  that  on  the  third 
day  the  ground  was  suddenly  shaken,  and  the 
stone  rolled  away  from  before  the  sepulcher ; 
that  in  the  grave  nothing  was  found  but  tlie 
articles  used  in  his  burial ;  that  the  report  was 


144      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

spread  abroad  by  those  who  stood  outside,  that 
the  disciples  had  taken  the  body  away ;  that 
Jesus  spent  forty  days  with  them  in  Galilee, 
teaching  them  what  their  mission  should  be, 
and  that,  after  giving  them  their  instructions 
as  to  what  they  should  preach,  he  was  raised 
in  a  cloud  to  heaven.  TertuUian  closes  this 
account  with  the  words, "  All  this  was  reported 
to  the  emperor  at  that  time,  Tiberius,  by  Pi- 
late, his  conscience  having  compelled  even  him 
to  become  a  Christian." 

The  document  now  in  our  possession  corre- 
sponds with  this  evidence  of  Justin  and  Tertul- 
lian.  Even  in  the  title  it  agrees  with  the  ac- 
count of  Justin,  although,  instead  of  the  word 
acta,  which  he  used,  and  which  is  manifestly 
much  more  Latin  than  Greek,  a  Greek  expres- 
sion is  employed,  which  can  be  shown  to  have 
been  used  to  indicate  genuine  Acts."^  The 
details  recounted  by  Justin  and  TertuUian  are 
all  found  in  our  text  of  the  Acts  of  Pilate,  with 
this  variation,  that  nothing  corresponds  to  what 
is  joined  to  the  declaration  of  the  prophet, 
"  They  dragged  him  to  the  seat  of  judgment, 


THE   ACTS    OF  PILATE.  145 

and  set  liim  upon  it,  and  said,"  etc. :  besides 
this,  the  casting  lots  for  the  vesture  is  expressed 
simply  by  the  allusion  to  the  division  of  the 
clothes.  We  must  give  even  closer  scrutiny  to 
one  point.  Justin  alludes  to  the  miracles 
which  were  performed  in  fulfillment  of  Old  Tes- 
tament prophecy,  on  -the  lame,  the  dumb,  the 
blind,  the  dead,  and  on  lepers.  In  fact,  in  our 
Acts  of  Pilate  there  are  made  to  appear  before 
the  Roman  governor  a  palsied  man  who  had 
suffered  for  thirty-eiglit  years,  and  was  brought 
in  a  bed  by  young  men,  and  healed  on  the  Sab- 
bath day;^^^  a  blind  man  cured  by  the  laying 
on  of  hands  ;  a  cripple  who  had  been  restored  ; 
a  leper  who  had  been  cleansed;  the  woman 
whose  issue  of  blood  had  been  stanched ;  and 
a  witness  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus  from  the 
dead.  Of  that  which  Tertullian  cites,  we  will 
adduce  merely  the  passage  found  in  no  one  of 
our  Gospels,  that  Jesus  passed  forty  days  after 
his  resurrection  in  company  with  his  disciples 
in  Galilee.  This  is  indicated  in  our  Acts  of 
Pilate,  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  chapter,  where 
the  risen  man  is  represented  as  saying  to  Jo- 

10 


146  ORIGIN  OF    THE   FOUR  GOSPELS. 

seph,  "  For  forty  days  go  not  out  of  thy  house ; 
for  behold,  I  go  to  my  brethren  m  Galilee." 

Every  one  will  perceive  how  strongly  the 
argument  that  our  Acts  of  Pilate  are  the  same 
which  Justin  and  Tertullian  read  is  buttressed 
by  these  unexpected  coincidences.  The  asser- 
tion recently  made^^*^  requires  consequently  no 
labored  contradiction  that  the  allusions  to  both 
men  have  grown  out  of  their  mere  suspicion 
that  there  was  such  a  record  as  the  Acts  of 
Pilate,  or  out  of  the  circulation  of  a  mere  story 

4 

about  such  a  record,  while  the  real  work  was 
written  as  the  consequence  of  these  allusions 
at  the  close  of  the  third  century.  What  an 
uncommon  fancy  it  requires  in  the  two  men  to 
coincide  so  perfectly  in  a  single  production  as 
is  the  case  in  the  Acts  to  which  I  am  now  re- 
ferring !  And  are  we  to  imagine  that  they  re- 
ferred with  such  emphasis  as  they  employed  to 
the  mere  creations  of  their  fancy  ? 

The  question  has  been  raised  with  more  jus- 
tice, whether  the  production  in  our  possession 
may  not  have  been  a  copy  or  free  revision  of 
the  old  and  primitive  one.     The  modern  change 


THE   ACTS    OF  PILATE.  147 

ill  the  title  has  given  support  to  this  conjecture, 
for  it  has  occasioned  the  work  to  be  commonly 
spoken  of  as  the  G-ospel  of  Nicodeinus.  But 
this  title  is  borne  neither  by  any  Greek  manu- 
script, the  Coptic-Sahidian  papyrus,  nor  the 
Latin  manuscripts,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
of  the  most  recent.^'^^  It  may  be  traced  only  sub- 
sequently to  the  twelfth  century,  although  at  a 
very  early  period,  in  one  of  the  two  prefaces 
attached  to  the  work,  Nicodemus  is  mentioned 
in  one  place  as  a  Hebrew  author,  and  in  an- 
other as  a  Greek  translator.  But  aside  from 
the  title,  the  handwriting  displays  great  varia- 
tion, and  the  two  prefaces  alluded  to  above 
show  clearly  the  work  of  two  hands.  Notwith- 
standing this,  however,  there  are  decisive 
grounds  for  holding  that  our  Acts  of  Pilate 
contain  in  its  main  substance  the  document 
drawn  from  Justin  and  Tertullian.  The  first 
of  this  to  be  noticed  is,  that  the  Greek  text,  as 
given  in  the  version  most  widely  circulated  in 
the  manuscripts,  is  surprisingly  corroborated 
by  two  documents  of  the  rarest  character,  and 
first  used  by  myself,  —  a  Coptic-Sahidian  papyrus 


148  ORIGIX   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

manuscript,  aud  a  Latin  palimpsest, — both  prob- 
ably dating  from  the  fifth  century.  Such  a  doc- 
umentary confirmation  of  their  text  is  possessed 
by  scarcely  ten  works  of  the  collective  Greek 
classic  literature.  Both. of  these  ancient  writ- 
ings make  it  in  the  highest  degree  probable 
that  the  Egyptian  and  Latin  translations  which 
they  contain  were  executed  still  earlier.  But 
could  a  work  which  was  held  m  great  consider- 
ation in  Justin's  and  Tertullian's  time,  and  down 
to  the  commencement  of  the  fourth  century, 
and  which  strenuously  ^-^^  insists  that  the  Empe- 
ror Maximin  caused  other  blasphemous  Acts  of 
Pilate  to  be  published  and  zealously  circulated, 
manifestly  for  the  purpose  of  displacing  and 
discrediting  the  older  Christian  Acts,  —  could 
such  a  work  suddenly  change  its  whole  form, 
and  from  the  fifth  century,  to  which  in  so  ex- 
traordinary a  manner  translators  wholly  difier- 
ent  in  character  point  back  with  such  wonder- 
ful concurrence,  continue  in  the  new  form  ? 
Contrary  as  this  is  to  all  historical  criticism, 
there  is  in  the  contents  of  the  work,  in  the  singu- 
lar manner  in  which  isolated  and  independent 


THE   ACTS   OF  PILATE.  149 

details  ^-^  are  shown  to  be  related  to  tlie  ca^ 
iionical  books,  no  less  than  in  the  accordance 
with  the  earliest  quotations  found  in  Justin 
and  TcrtuUian,^-^  a  guaranty  of  the  greatest 
antiquity.  There  are  in  the  contents,  also, 
matters  of  such  a  nature  that  we  must  confess 
that  they  are  to  be  traced  back  to  the  primitive 
edition ;  as,  for  example,  the  narrative  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  bringing  forward  of  the  accused. 
But  the  wliole  character  of  the  work  in  our  pos- 
session does  not  deny  in  toto  that  which  we 
must  infer  from  the  statements  of  Justin  and 
Tertullian.  It  is  incorrect,  moreover,  to  draw 
a  conclusion  from  Justin's  designation  of  the 
Acta  which  is  not  warranted  by  the  whole  char- 
acter of  the  work.  The  Acta,  the  vTZOfivji^ara, 
are  specified  in  Justin's  account,  not  less  than 
in  the  manuscripts  which  we  possess,  as  being 
written  under  Pontius  Pilate  ;  and  that  can  sig- 
nify nothing  else  than  that  they  were  an  official 
production,  composed  under  the  direct  sanc- 
tion of  the  Roman  Governor.  Their  transmis- 
sion to  the  Emperor  must  be  imagined  as  accom- 
panied by  a  letter  of  the  same  character  with 


150  OEIGiy   OF   THE   FOUIi    GOSPELS. 

that  \\liicli  has  been  brought  down  to  us  in  the  ^ 

Greek  and  Latin  edition, ^-^  and  yet  not  at  all 
similar  in  purport  to  the  notable  Acts  of  Pilate. 
It  is  by  no  means  necessary  for  us  to  assert 
that  the  production  in  our  hands  has  (with  the 
exception  of  the  preface  already  alluded  to)  re- 
mained free  from  interpolations ;  for  the  dis- 
tinguishing characteristic  which  it  bears  is  the 
weaving  in  of  much  from  the  synoptic  Gospels, 
and  still  more  from  John,  relative  to  the  last 
sufferings  of  Jesus. ^-^  Is  it  not  stated  in  Jus- 
tin that  the  Acts  of  Pilate  reveal  the  fulfillment 
of  the  prophecy  respecting  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead,  as  it  is  given  in  chapter  eight  of 
the  work  in  our  hands,  in  the  testimony  con- 
cerning the  raising  of  Lazarus  ?  Is  it  probable 
that,  in  order  to  set  John  aside,  we  are  to  be- 
lieve that  in  Justin's  edition  there  was  recorded 
one  of  the  two  other  resurrections,  of  which  we 
have  traces  preserved  for  us  ? 

It  would  lead  us  to  tlie  denial  of  an  unques- 
tionable fact  should  we  not  admit  the  claims  of 
our  Acts  of  Pilate,  in  their  connection  with  the 
work  of  the  same  name  known  to  Justin,  to 


GOSPEL    OF    THE   INFANCY.  151 

serve  as  testimony  to  the  authority  of  the  Jo- 
hannean  as  well  as  the  synoptic  Gospels,  dating 
•from  a  period  prior  to  Justin,  in  spite  of  their 
frequent  use  of  those  Gospels.  What  impor- 
tance this  fact  has  in  enabling  us  to  determine 
the  age  of  our  Gospels,  and  especially  that  of 
John,  is  at  once  apparent ;  it  weighs  far  more 
than  any  verbal  extracts  made  from  John  in 
the  epoch  of  Justin,  If  the  apocryphal  Acts  of 
Pilate  must,  for  the  reason  that  Justin  cites 
them  in  his  first  Apology  to  the  Roman  Empe- 
ror, be  ascribed  to  the  first  decades  of  the  second 
century,  they  show,  by  their  use  of  and  depend- 
ence upon  the  Gospel  of  John,  that  the  latter 
dates  from  a  period  even  earlier.  This  theory 
throws  no  light  into  the  impenetrable  darkness, 
but,  among  the  many  beams  which  come  down 
from  the  period  directly  after  the  age  of  the 
apostles,  and  which  illumine  the  most  impor- 
tant question. of  Christianity,  this  is  one  of  the 
most  luminous. 

We  might  also  cite  Thomas's  Gospel  of  the 
Infancy  for  our  purpose.  Irenaius  and  Hippo- 
lytus  ^-^  both  show  that  it  was  used  by  the  Mar- 


152      ORIGIN   OF   THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

cosians  and  the  Naasenians ;  it  was  therefore  un- 
questionably one  of  the  first  results  of  the  pro- 
ductive heresy  of  that  age,  and  must  be  ascribed. 
to  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  Its  text 
we  possess  only  in  fragments,  which  are  at 
issue  ^-®  often  among  themselves,  and  which 
consequently  makes  it  diflQcult  to  ascertain  the 
connection  of  scattered  passages  with  those  of 
the  Gospels.  The  work  seems,  however,  to  bear 
witness  in  one  respect  to  the  results  of  my  re- 
searches, and  not  in  the  not  unimportant  fact 
that  at  the  time  when  this  book  appeared,  in 
the  middle  of  the  second  century,  the  Gospel 
canon  ordinarily  accepted  was  already  formed, 
and  the  story  of  the  years  of  Jesus'  childhood 
filled  up  a  break  in  the  account  of  his  life. 
This  left  a  district  open  to  historical  research, 
and  one  which  heresy  knew  well  how  to  prize. 
Besides  this  there  confronts  us  one  fact  more, 
which  admits  of  application  to  the  three  more  or 
less  perfectly  personal  evidences  of  the  Chris- 
tian Apocraphy.  The  wide  divergence  found  in 
these,  in  respect  to  form  as  well  as  substance,  to 
language  as  well  as  spirit,  to  delineation  as  well 


PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE   LITERATURE.  153 

as  conception,  bears  witness  to  a  sacred  origin 
of  our  canonical  Gospels,  to  which  the  apocry- 
phal writings  are  related  as  the  last  subjoined 
appendices. 

I  might  allude  here  in  a  single  word  to  the 
pseudo-Clementine  literature,  whose  main  work, 
the  Homilies,  is  certainly  to  be  ascribed  to  the 
middle  of  the  second  century.  The  establish- 
ment of  this  date  does  not  lead  to  the  necessity 
of  drawing  any  such  inferences  respecting  the 
history  of  the  canon  as  we  drew  in  the  case  of 
the  book  of  James  and  the  Acts  of  Pilate. 
Still  it  is  very  instructive  that  the  transition  of 
the  Gospel  of  John  into  this  Judaic-Christian- 
tendency  record,^-^  which  was  not  at  all  dis- 
puted till  the  year  1833,  has  been  shown  to  be 
utterly  untenable  by  the  discovery  by  Dressel,  at 
Rome,  of  the  concluding  portions  of  it  where 
(xix.  22)  John's  narrative  of  the  man  who  was 
born  blind  is  made  use  of  beyond  all  doubt. 

The  elucidation  already  given  respecting  the 
Acts  of  Pilate  and  the  book  of  James  had  already 
brought  us  to  the  opening  first  decades  of  the 
second  century,  and  compelled   us  to  confess 


154  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

that  there  was  unquestionably  use  made,  at 
that  period,  of  our  Gospels.  No  one  of  the  re- 
maining results  of  our  investigations  into  the 
ecclesiastical  and  heretical  literature  of  the 
second  century  stood  in  antagonism  with  this 
fact.  Not  only  the  apocryphal  writings  already 
named  bring  us  back  to  that  epoch,  but  a  work 
of  great  repute  in  the  Christian  literature,  one 
which  from  even  the  close  of  the  second  cen- 
tury to  the  opening  of  the  fourth  was  assigned 
by  such  men  as  Clemens  Alexandrinus  ^^^  to 
Holy  Writ.  It  forms  a  part  of  the  so-called 
apostolical  Fathers,  regarding  which  we  have 
already  spoken  in  our  discussion  of  the  epistles 
of  Ignatius  and  that  of  Poly  carp.  If  it  really 
bore  rightly  ^the  name  of  Barnabas,  the  com- 
panion of  Paul,  it  would,  in  spite  of  certain  un- 
satisfactory details,  be  correctly  entitled  to  a 
place  among  the  sacred  books  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. Slight  as  is  the  ecclesiastical  or  scien- 
tific recognition  granted  to  this  claim  of  author- 
ship, yet  the  assertion  is  made  with  confidence, 
that  the  epistle  bearing  the  nam-e  of  Barnabas 
is  one  of  the  earliest  written  records  which  have 


EPISTLE    OF  BARNABAS.  155 

come  down  to  us  from  the  epoch  directly  sub- 
sequent to  the  life  of  the  apostles.  If  the  ex- 
pressions (in  the  sixteenth  chapter)  conjoined 
with  the  word  of  prophecy  regarding  the  re- 
building of  the  City  and  the  Temple  are  in  ac- 
cordance with  historical  fact,  we  are  brought 
back  from  the  conflicting  statements  respecting 
the  closing  decades  of  the  first  century  and  the 
opening  decades  of  the  second,  to  the  first  year 
of  Hadrian's  reign.  In  its  aim  and  general 
character  the  epistle  bears  the  closest  resem-- 
blance,  among  the  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews ;  it  is  directed 
against  such  Christian  converts  from  Judaism, 
who,  while  accepting  the  new  covenant,  sought 
to  cling  to  the  old,  and  hence  felt  that  they 
must  share  with  the  former  fellow-believers  in 
the  grief  over  the  fall  of  the  Jewish  Temple. 
In  opposition  to  them,  the  epistle,  basing  itself 
largely  upon  Old  Testament  prophecy  and  au- 
thority, arrays  the  proof  that  the  new  covenant 
brought  in  by  Christ  had  completely  done  away 
with  the  older  one,  and  that  the  latter  had 
merely  been,  with  its  temple  and  whole  service, 


156      ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    OOSPELS. 

an  incomplete  and  temporary  type  of  tlie  new 
covenant. 

Within  the  last  two  centuries  scholars  have 
husied  themselves  much  with  this  document, 
but  unfortunately  there  are  lacking  in  all  the 
Greek  manuscripts  of  it,  the  first  five  cliapters  ; 
only  an  old  Latin  translation,  greatly  iiicom- 
plete,^^^  supplies  the  deficiency.  And  exactly 
in  those  chapters  which  are  found  only  in  the 
Latin  copy  is  there  a  passage  whicli  lias  excited 
great  curiosity.  "  Let  us  be  on  our  guard," 
thus  it  reads  in  the  fourth  chapter,  ''  that  we 
be  not  be  found  to  be,  as  it  is  written,  many 
called  but  few  chosen."  "  Adtendamus  ergo 
ne  forte,  sicut  scriptum  est,  multi  vocati,  panel 
electi  inveniamur."  The  expression,  ''  as  it  is 
written,"  will  be  readily  recognized  by  the  reader 
as  a  familiar  one  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is 
the  phrase  which  always  designates  the  differ- 
ence between  all  passages  of  Holy  Writ  and  all 
others,  and  was  invariably  used  by  the  apostles, 
as  well  as  by  the  Saviour,  in  citing  the  Old 
Testament.  If  it  were  ever  applied  to  a  pas- 
sage outside  of  the  canon,  it  only  followed  that 


EPISTLE    OF  BARNABAS.  157 

the  passage  in  question  had  hcen  drawn  by  fre- 
quent use  into  the  circle  Of  canonical  writings, 
just  as,  for  example,  Jude  cites  from  the 
prophet  Enoch.  It  could  be  publicly  trans- 
ferred to  the  writings  of  the  apostles,  when  tlie 
latter  were  placed  on  the  same  basis  with  the 
Old  Testament.  As  soon  as  passages  of  the 
Gospels  were  cited  in  connection  with  the 
phrase,  "  as  it  is  written,"  it  was  assumed  that 
they  had  become  canonical.  We  had  occasion 
on  a  former  page  to  allude  to  this  matter,  while 
referring  to  Justin's  arranging  the  Gospels  and 
the  Prophecies  side  by  side,  and  to  the  epistles 
of  Ignatius  ;  the  same  formula  was  also  encoun- 
tered in  the  New  Testament  quotations  of  the 
Naasenians.  The  words  which  have  been  cited 
in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  in  connection  with 
the  same  formula  are  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew, 
xxii.  14,  and  xx.  16.  If  our  inference  is  cor- 
rect, at  the  time  when  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas 
was  written,  this  Gospel  was  regarded  as  canon- 
ical. 

But  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  extends  back  to 
the  highest  Christig-n  antiquity.     And  is  it  pos- 


158  'origin  of  the  four  gospels. 

sible,  some  ask,  that  at  so  remote  a  period  the 
passage  from  Matthew  should  be  marked  by 
the  characteristics  of  canonization  ?  The  doubt 
conveyed  in  this  question  has  been  materially 
strengthened  by  the  circumstance  that  the  pas- 
sage has  hitherto  existed  only  in  a  Latin  form. 
It  was  possible  to  say,  therefore,  that  this  sig- 
nificant phrase  was  added  by  a  translator  liv- 
ing long  subsequently.  Dr.  Credner,  in  1832, 
wrote  these  literal  words  :  "  The  form  of  cita- 
tion, sicut  Scriptum  est,  applied  to  a  book  of 
the  New  Testament,  was  wholly  without  usage 
in  that  time,  and  not  an  instance  of  it  can  be 
found."  The  portion  of  the  Epistle  of  Barna- 
bas which  contains  the  passage  under  discus- 
sion does  not  exist  at  present  in  the  original 
Greek,  but  only  in  a  Latin  translation.  It  was 
an  easy  matter,  therefore,  for  the  translator  to 
subjoin  the  current  formula  of  quotation  ;  and 
from  internal  evidence  we  must  accordingly 
lay  claim  to  the  correctness  of  the  text  in  the 
passage  under  consideration,  till  some  one  shall 
show  satisfactory  proof  to  the  contrary.  In 
order  to  decide  the  question  respecting  the  an- 


EPISTLE    OF   BARNABAS.  159 

tiquity  of  the  formula,  it  was  necessary  to  con- 
sult the  original  Greek  text.  It  was  destined 
not  to  be  withheld  from  the  Christian  world. 
After  lying  many  hundreds  of  years  among  the 
old  parchments  at  the  Convent  of  St.  Catherine 
in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai,  it  came  to  light  in  a 
liappy  hour ;  -  for  with  the  Sinaitic  Bible,  the 
whole  of  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  was  discovered 
in  the  original  Greek.  And  what  is  the  de- 
cision which  it  gives  respecting  the  subject  un- 
der discussion  ?  It  decides  that  the  writer  of 
the  epistle  himself  placed  the  important  Chris- 
tian-classic expression,  "  as  it  is  written,"  before 
the  quotation  from  Matthew,  and  that  it  was 
not  the  work  of  the  translator. 

After  this  important  fact  was  established,  a 
new  question  arose,  namely,  whether  important 
inferences  could  be  drawn  unconditionally  from 
this  phrase.  Could  not  the  formula,  ''  as  it  is 
written,"  be  accepted  as  referring  to  any  book  ? 
How  little  ground  there  is  for  this  I  have  al- 
ready shown  in  my  explanations  of  the  use  to 
be  made  of  this  formula  ;  and  we  have  no  riglit 
to  weaken  its  force   in  the   present  instance. 


160      ORIGIN  OF   THE   FOUR   GOSPELS. 

But  are  we  also  compelled  to  recognize  its  rela- 
tion to  the  passage  from  Matthew?  What 
would  be  more  evident,  if  we  are  to  escape  the 
assaults  of  unsound  and  partisan  criticism  ? 
A  writer  of  this  class  has  brought  forward  a" 
notion  which  once  brought  down  the  scorn  of 
Credner  ^^^  upon  it,  namely,  that  the  quotation 
of  Barnabas's  Epistle  is  to  be  referred  to  the 
fourth  book  of  Ezra,  quoted  elsewhere  in  the 
^Epistle. ^^^  There,  in  the  eighth  chapter,  it  is 
expressly  stated  according  to  the  Latin  and 
Ethiopian  text,  "  nam  multi  creati  sunt  (in  the 
Ethiop.,  besides,  in  eo,  i.  e.  mundo)  pauci  autem 
salvabuntur," — for  many  have  been  born,  but 
few  shall  be  saved.  In  spite  of  the  applause 
which  this^^^  has  received  in  a  certain  quarter,  it 
only  shows  to  what  wanton  fancies  the  opposition 
brought  against  the  age  of  our  evangelical  canon 
leads  men.  The  visible  absurdity  of  referring 
a  citation,  taken  word  for  word  from  Matthew, 
to  a  passage  in  a  book  of  Ezra,  written  twenty 
years  earlier  ^^^  and  having  quite  a  different 
meaning,  is  carried  so  far  that  the  expression 
of  the  Saviour  in  Matthew  is  degraded  into  a 


EPISTLE    OF  BARNABAS.  161 

mere  "  Christian  interpretation  "  of  the  passage 
in  Ezra.^^^  That  Matthew  is  referred  to  else- 
where in  the  Epistle  is  supposed  not  to  have  its 
weiglit  in  strengthening  the  citation  from  him 
accompanied  by  the  canonical  formula,  but  to 
prove,  on  the  contrary,  that  Barnabas,  with  all 
his  acquaintance  with  Matthew,  did  not  hold 
his  work  to  be  a  sacred  book.^^^  It  is  forgotten 
that  quite  often  we  meet  in  the  later  Fathers, 
in  connection  with  direct  and  express  quota- 
tions, the  same  weaving  in  of  a  biblical  clause 
that  we  have  in  Barnabas  ;  and  in  these  cases 
the  reader  is  pre-supposed  to  have  that  familiar- 
ity with  Scripture  which  will  enable  him  to  deter- 
mine what  it  is  which  is  thus  woven  in,  with- 
out its  being  definitely  pointed  out  with  words 
or  signs  of  quotation.  Thus,  for  example,  in 
chapter  five  of  Barnabas's  Epistle,  we  have  the 
expression,  "  He  chose  for  his  disciples,  to  go 
forth  and  announce  his  gospel,  men  full  of  sin 
and  unrighteousness,  in  order  to  show  that  he 
had  not  come  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners ; 
and  therefore  he  revealed  himself  as  the  Son  of 
God."  What  reader  of  these  words  could  fail 
II 


162  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

to  see  ill  them  the  reflection  of  what  our  Sav- 
viour  says  m  Matt.  ix.  13, "  I  am  not  come  to  call 
the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance  "  ?  ^^s 
We  have,  moreover,  in  the  twelfth  chapter, 
"  Since  it  is  a  thing  in  the  future  ^^^  that  men 
shall  say  that  Christ  is  David's  son,  therefore 
David  himself,  comprehending  in  advance  the 
error  which  sinners  will  make,  says,  '  The 
Lord  says  unto  my  Lord,  sit  thou  here  on  my 
right  hand  until  I  make  thine  enemies  thy  foot- 
stool.' "  Could  Barnabas  write  this  without  pre- 
supposing that  his  readers  would  have  Matt, 
xxii.  41,  et  sq.  in  mind?  And  in  this  presup- 
position is  not  the  recognition  of  the  authority 
of  the  then  extant  Gospel  of  Matthew  taken  for 
granted  ?  And  if  in  the  same  twelfth  chapter 
of  Matthew  it  is  shown  how  Moses  lifted  up  the 
brazen  serpent  in  the  wilderness  in  typification 
of  the  Saviour,  "  who  should  suffer  (die)  and 
yet  himself  give  life  to  others,"  it  is  directly 
obvious  that  Barnabas  was  making  use  of  the 
truth  hinted  at  in  John  iii.  14,  even  if  the 
phrase,  taken  word  by  word,  fails  to  show  this. 
It   is  possible  indeed   that  the  writer   of  this 


EPISTLE    OF  BARNABAS.  163 

Epistle  wrote  independently  in  this  case,  as  in 
many  others ;  and  yet  we  are  justified  in  assum- 
ing the  very  great  probability  that  he  had  the 
passage  of  John  in  mind:  still,  in  assuming 
this,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  his  Epistle  is 
written  in  the  same  tone  as  that  of  John's,  and 
was  a  reflex  of  it.  The  disproportionate  num- 
ber of  express  quotations  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment found  in  Barnabas  is  in  direct  relatioa 
with  the  whole  character  of  his  Epistle  :  and  no 
inference  can  be  drawn  from  it,  which  invali- 
dates the  canonization  ^^^  of  the  Gospels. 

Does,  then,  the  fact  indicated  by  the  Epistle 
of  Barnabas,  that  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  was 
reckoned  a  part  of  Holy  Writ  prior  to  the  year 
120,  come  into  hazardous  conflict  with  the  re- 
sults already  gained  by  us  in  our  study  of  the 
second  century  ?  It  is  needless  to  try  to  an- 
swer such  a  question.  There  is  only  down- 
right gain  to  our  side,  and  that  of  a  new  and 
important  link  in  the  chain  of  proofs  support- 
ing the  very  earliest  acceptance  of  the  credibil- 
ity of  the  Gospels ;  a  new  barrier  erected  against 
the  idle  vagaries  of  conjecture  which  have  liith- 


164      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

erto  been  allowed  to  float  around  and  hide  the 
history  of  the  New  Testament  canon. 

But  are  we  compelled  to  limit  to  Matthew 
the  authenticity  thus  granted  to  his  canonical 
value  ?  By  no  means.  All  our  studies  re- 
specting the  history  of  the  canon  lead  to  this 
result,  that  the  attempt  was  not  made  in  the 
infancy  of  the  church  to  raise  any  one  of  the 
Gospels,  taken  exclusively,  to  the  rank  of  ca- 
nonical writings.  For  we  saw,  in  the  first  half 
of  the  second  century,  now  Matthew,  now  John, 
now  Luke,  or  one  taken  in  connection  with  an- 
other, come  into  the  foreground ;  and  this 
shows  conclusively  that  at  that  epoch  no  one 
was  credited  while  another-  was  discredited. 
The  small  compass,  too,  of  the  literature 
which  has  come  down  to  us  from  that  time, 
and  the  character  of  the  Gospels,  taken  sep- 
arately,—  Matthew,  for  example,  being  incom- 
parably better  adapted  for  quotation  than  Mark, 
—  lead  to  the  inference  that  the  one  bears  wit- 
ness to  the  equal  worth  of  the  other.  And  we 
learned,  too,  from  Justin's  use  of  the  Acts  of 
Pilate  about  the  year  140,  that  the  Gospel  of 


EQUAL    VALUE    OF   THE    GOSPELS.  165 

John,  so  much  used,  not  only  in  those  Acts 
which  were  written  some  few  decades  before 
Justin's  Apology,  but  also  in  connection  with 
tho  synoptic  Gospels,  must  be  assigned  to  the 
opening  of  the  second  century,  Justin  himself 
having  often  made  use  of  John,  and  still  more 
frequently  of  Matthew.  Is  not  this  alone  sat- 
isfactory proof  that  if,  at  the  time  when  the 
Epistle  of  Barnabas  was  written,  Matthew  had 
attained  to  canonical  authority,  John  too  must 
have  had  the  same  ?  Basilides  used  John  and 
Luke  at  the  time  of  Hadrian  ;  Valentin,  about 
140,  John,  Matthew,  and  Luke  ;  and  are  there 
not  safe  inferences  to  be  drawn  thence  that 
these  writers  are  in  close  alliance  ? 

To  this  must  be  added  the  fact  that  we  so 
early  and  so  repeatedly  find,  as,  for  example,  in 
Justin  and  xVgrippa  Castor,  the  separate  Gos- 
pels united  in  one  whole,  and  that,  in  view  of 
the  collective  and  grand  character  thus  given  to 
this  whole,  the  name  and  individuality  of  each 
writer  are  thrown  into  the  background,  but 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  Justin  refers  occasion- 
ally to  the  discrimination  made,  at  a  later  day, 


166  OIUGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

by  Tertulliaii,  in  the  character  of  the  four  Evan- 
gelists, according  to  which  some  were  the  real 
disciples  of  the  Lord,  and  the  others  apostolical 
companions.  And  how  are  we  to  understand 
otherwise  that  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  sec- 
ond century  Harmonies  of  the  Four  Gospels 
were  prepared,  and  that  in  Irenaeus  —  not  to 
lose  sight  of  him  —  the  four  are  unitedly  sub- 
jected to  comment,  without  the  least  hint  of 
there  being  superior  or  inferior  value  on  the  part 
of  the  separate  Gospels?  Is  there  the  faintest 
indication  that,  in  the  course  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, the  church,  while  discussing  many  issues 
which  are  reported  to  us,  took  up  and  passed  its 
judgment  upon  the  Gospel  canon,  —  a  funda- 
mental matter ;  while,  before  the  close  of  that 
century,  tlie  same  canon  meets  us  everywhere 
as  having  been  long  accepted  ? 

But  when,  then,  are  we  to  consider  that  the 
canon  passed  into  general  acceptance  ?  Every- 
thing compels  us  to  assign  it  to  the  close  of  the 
first  century,  or  to  the  opening  years  of  the 
second.  That  was  the  time  when,  with  the 
death  of  the  aged^'*^  John,  all  the  revered  men 


THE    CANON,    WHEN   ACCEPTED.  167 

who  had  stood  in  personal  relations  with  Jesus, 
and  Paul  too,  the  great  apostle  to  the  Gentiles, 
liad  passed  away,  and  could  no  longer  give  their 
direct  authority  in  all  ecclesiastical  matters  to 
the  young  church ;  the  time  when  the  church 
was  outgrowing  its  old  home,  and  stretching 
wider  and  wider  out,  convulsed  within  by  vari- 
ous movements,  and  pressed  upon  without  by 
liostile  assaults,  —  then  it  was  that  men  began 
to  consecrate  and  regard  with  hallowing  ven- 
eration the  writings  which  the  founders  of  the 
church  had  left  behind  them,  gather  them  up 
as  imperishable  bequests,  as  well-authenticated 
evidences  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  the  Sav- 
iour, the  most  precious  types  of  what  men's 
faith  and  practice  should  be.  The  fit  time  had 
evidently  come  to  put  these  writings  on  the 
same  basis  as  that  of  the  old  covenant.  The 
complete  separation  of  the  church  from  the 
synagogue  had  taken  place :  subsequently  to 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  of  its  temple 
(about  the  year  70),  the  church  had  been 
thrown  more  decidedly  upon  itself,  and  had 
become  more  independent ;  and  it  was  a  signili- 


168  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

cant  sign  of  this  independence  to  ascribe  to  the 
writings  which  recorded  the  life  of  the  Saviour 
and  the  deeds  of  his  followers  the  same  sanctity 
which  had  long  invested  the  sacred  documents 
of  the  synagogue,  on  which  Christianity  was 
based. 

Do  we  ask  in  what  way  this  has  taken  place  ? 
It  certainly  is  not  a  question  which  needs  much 
time  to  enable  us  to  answer  it.  If  men  like 
Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John  left  on  record 
statements  respecting  the  life  of  our  Lord,  who 
would  not  have  recognized  them  at  once  as  a 
precious  bequest  to  the  church,  and  gratefully 
accepted  them  ?  Did  it  require  more  than 
their  honored  names  to  insure  for  their  writ- 
ings the  greatest  veneration  by  the  whole 
church  ?  And  had  not  these  men  all  stood  in 
close  enough  personal  relations  with  the  church 
to  insure  the  latter  against  receiving  any  works 
which  should  be  unauthentic,  and  palmed  off 
by  trickery  ?  And  of  no  Gospel  is  this  more 
true  than  of  John's.  Suppose  that  it  did  pro- 
ceed from  the  midst  of  his  Asia  Minor  congre- 
gations, and  pass  into  the  possession  of  wider 


JOHN'S   GOSPEL.  1G9 

circles ;  could  the  least  suspicion  of  a  want  of 
genuineness  fasten  to  it  ?  But  in  case  it  did  not 
proceed  from  his  own  congregations,  would  the 
latter  not  have  detected  the  imposition  at  once? 
It  was  impossible  to  bring  them  to  accept  an 
unauthentic  word  of  their  own  bishop ;  certainly 
not  by  deception.  But  we  have  the  bishop 
who  followed  John  at  Ephesus  as  one  of  the 
witnesses  to  the  authenticity  of  his  Gospel. 
For  if  Polycrates,  bishop  of  Ephesus  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  second  century,  in  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  Victor  of  Rome  (Ens.  Hist.  Eccl.  v. 
24),  alludes  to  the  apobtle  buried  in  Ephesus, 
and  characterized  him  with  the  same  expres- 
sion which  is  used  in  John  xiii.  23  and  25, — 
^'  who  leaned  on  the  Lord's  bosom,"  —  tliere  is 
beyond  all  gloubt  a  confirmation  of  the  Gospel. 
As  to  the  rest,  that  John  was  the  last  who 
wrote  is  evidenced  not  only  by  the  very  an- 
cient tradition  that  lie  was  tlie  one  whose 
name  was  always  mentioned  after  the  others, 
as  we  have  seen  to  be  the  case  in  the  hints 
drawn  from  Muratori,  in  Irenaeus,  and  in  the 
oldest  Greek  manuscripts,'"*-  but  Clemens  Alex- 


170  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

aiidriims  and  Eusebius  give  distinct  expres- 
sion to  it  in  what  they  have  communicated 
to  us  respecting  the  circumstances  which  gave 
rise  to  that  Gospel.  In  the  first  of  these  latter 
writers  (see  Ens.  vi.  14),  the  wish  of  friends  is 
represented  as  prompting  the  more  spiritual- 
minded  disciple  to  add  a  fourth  Gospel  to  the 
other  three,  for  the  purpose  of  recording  more 
distinctly  the  workings  of  Jesus'  spirit.  Ac- 
cording to  the  latter  (iii.  24),  while  confessing 
the  truth  and  authentic  value  of  the  first  three 
Gospels,  he   is   represented  as  omitting  what 

relates  more  exclusively  to  the  public  activity 

e, 
of  Jesus,  and  giving  a  needful  compliment  to 

the  evangelical  narrative. 

Since,  then,  the  writings  left  behind  by  the 
apostles  stand  at  the  very  outset  jn  the  per- 
sonal authority  of  the  writers,  this  authority  of 
course  only  grew  in  magnitude  after  the  de- 
cease of  the  persons  who  have  personally  been 
the  representatives  of  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 
Out  of  the  vital  development  of  the  church 
grew  the  primitive  canon  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  took  its  place  side  by  side  with  the  Old. 


GROWTH   OF    THE    CAXOX.  171 

It  would  bo  easy  to  admit  that  such  a  canon,  iu 
accordance  with  its  evangelical  character  (not 
to  speak  here  of  its  other  features),  would  natu- 
rally fall  within  the  time  which  has  been  as- 
signed, viz.,  the  close  of  the  first  century: 
this,  however,  we  should  not  be  able  to  settle 
definitely  ^^'  unless  the  history  and  literature  of 
the  whole  second  proved  such  a  cogent  argu- 
ment in  its  favor. 

There  is  yet  one  thing  more  to  add  to  what 
has  already  been  said  respecting  the  oldest 
Christian  literature.  It  is  the  evidence  which 
Papias  gives,  and  which,  more  than  any  other, 
has  been  misused  by  the  opponents  of  our  Gos- 
pels. The  want  of  positive  knowledge  wliich 
rests  upon  tliis  man,  as  well  as  upon  his  testi- 
mony, makes  him  not  a  fit  subject  to  be  taken 
either  independently  or  in  antagonism  with 
other  witnesses. 

From  Eusebius  (iii.  39)  we  learn,  confirmed 
as  it  is  by  Irenaeus  (v.  33:  4),  that  Papias 
composed  a  work  in  five  books,  which  he  called 
an  Exposition  of  the  sayings  of  our  Lord."* 
While  h3  WIS  collecting  tho  materials  for  this 


172       OniGIX   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

work  he  believed  that  his  task  was  not  so 
much  to  cull  what  was  to  be  found  in  written 
records  as  in  unwritten  tradition  ;  and,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  assurance,  he  drew  especially 
from  those  oral  accounts  which  could  be  traced 
back  to  the  apostles.  These  are  his  own  words 
regarding  his  book  :  "  I  shall  arrange  with  as- 
siduity whatever  I  may  gather  from  the  presby- 
ters (elders),  and  retain  in  memory,  while 
aiming  to  ascertain  the  truth  of  the  same  by 
means  of  personal  investigation.  For  I  did 
not  find  my  pleasure,  as  most  do,  in  those  who 
have  much  to  tell,  but  in  those  who  teach  the 
truth ;  not  in  those  who  bring  forward  what  is 
strange,  and  out  of  the  usual  course  (rug  alio- 
TQLug  htoldg') ,  but  in  those  who  surrender  them- 
selves absolutely  to  the  truth ,^"*'^  and  claim  line- 
age with  what  is  true.  Whenever,  therefore,  I 
fell  in  with  those  who  used  to  be  on  intimate 
terms  with  the  presbyters,  I  made  special  in- 
quiries as  to  what  Andrew,  or  Peter,  or  Philip, 
or  Thomas,  or  James,  or  John,  or  Matthew,  or 
any  other  disciple  of  the  Lord,  or  as  to  what  Aris- 
tion  and  John  the  presbyter,  disciples  also,  have 


PAPIAS'S    TESTIMONY.  173 

to  saj.^^^  For  I  believed  that  the  books  (m  Ia 
zdjv  ^ipdmv)  would  not  be  of  so  much  service  to 
me  in  giving  exhaustive  information  as  the  liv- 
ing word  of  men  (quantum  ex  hominura  adhuc 
supemtitum  voce)." 

This  passage  of  Papias  is  obscure  in  various 
ways,  and  on  this  account  I  have  endeavored 
to  translate  it  literally.  The  first  and  most 
important  point  to  settle  is,  who  the  elders  or 
"  presbyters "  were.  Papias  alludes  to  them 
as  his  vouchers,  whom  he  used  in  part  directly, 
in  part  indirectly.  Are  the  apostles  themselves 
to  be  regarded  as  covered  by  the  expression  ? 
It  is  supposed  by  many  that  they  are  ;  but  this 
notion  is  absolutely  denied  and  rendered  unten- 
able by  Eusebius.  For,  after  stating  that  Ire- 
naeus  designates  Papias  as  a  "  hearer  of  John 
and  companion  of  Polycarp,"  he  qualifies  his 
words  by  saying,  "  But  Papias  has  by  no  means 
represented  him  in  the  preface  of  his  book  as 
one  who  himself  heard  and  saw  the  holy  apos- 
tles :  he  teaches,  on  the  contrary,  that  he  had  re- 
ceived the  matters  of  faith  (ta  xrig  maxE(og)  from 
those  who  had  had  personal  acquaintance  with 


174      ORIGIN   OF    THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

them  (jtaQCL  tav  lyidvoig  yvcoQijA.cov') .  In  like  man- 
ner, he  says,  a  little  farther  on  in  the  earns 
chapter  (iii.  39:  4),  Papias  insists  that  he  re- 
ceived the  words  of  the  apostles  from  their  own 
followers,  and  says  that  he  himself  drew,  from 
the  lips^''^  of  Aristion  and  the  preshyter  John; 
adding  this,  that  Papias  often  mentions  these 
by  name  when  giving  in  his  book  the  commu- 
nications which  they  made.  It  is  not  only  in- 
credible that  Eusebius  erred  in  this,  it  was,  in- 
deed, scarcely  possible  for  him  to  do  so.  For, 
as  he  had  the  whole  work  of  Papias  before  him, 
and  was  making  selections  for  his  own  pur- 
poses, it  could  scarcely  escape  him,  if  Papias, 
in  one  case  or  another,  appealed  to  the  direct 
communication  of  an  apostle,  clear  as  it  was  to 
him  that  he  had  known  Aristion  and  the  pres- 
byter John.  And  how  wholly  differently  would 
he  have  brought  forward  in  his  preface  his 
vouchers,  had  they  been  the  apostles !  he  surely 
would  not  have  written,  as  he  has,  words  which 
are  capable  of  a  double  interpretation,  if  he  had 
been  reterring  directly  to  them.  In  the  whole 
passage,  however,  the  presbyters  are  set  in  con- 


TERM  "PRESBYTERS."  17i 

trast  with  the  apostles ;  and  yet  tlie  clause, 
"  the  disciples  of  the  Lord,"  subjoined  to  the 
names  Aristion  and  John  the  presbyter,  makes 
the  meaning  of  this  expression  obscure ;  at 
least  rendering  a  double  interpretation  of  it 
possible.  And  is  it  credible  that  Papias  should 
say  that  he  would  confirm  with  his  own  declara- 
tions the  statement  of  tlie  apostles  ?  Respect- 
ing the  words  of  the  presbyters,  he  could  say 
this  with  the  more  justice,  because,  as  his  own 
words  and  the  declaration  of  Eusebius  show, 
he  was  able  to  use  of  these  only  Aristion  and 
John ;  but  in  the  case  of  the  others,  he  had  to 
rely  on  wliat  was  communicated  indire(j^y. 
Irenaeus  brings  evidence  confirmatory  of  this 
way  of  interpreting  the  term  "  presbyters ;  " 
for  he  derives  the  tradition  of  the  "  wanton 
luxury  of  the  kingdom  of  a  thousand  *  years '* 
expressly  from  the  mouth  of  "  the  presbyters 
who  had  seen  John,  the  disciple  of  the  Lord," 
and  confirms  this  by  appealing  directly  to  the 
writings  of  Papias.  Granting  in  this  way  that 
he  was  a  hearer  of  John  and  a  friend  of  Poly- 
carp,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  the  presbyters  in 


176  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

Irenseus  have  the  same  signification  as  in  Pa- 
pias,  and  that  they  are  not  for  an  instant  to  be 
confounded  with  the  apostles. ^*^  This  infer- 
ence respecting  Papias  which  is  found  in  Ire- 
naeus  rests  in  the  greatest  probability  on  no 
other  ground  than  the  statement  of  Papias  him- 
self, carefully  drawn  up  by  Eusebius,  but  care- 
lessly used  by  Irenaeus ;  but  that  he  confounded 
the  apostle  John,  as  his  manner  of  speaking 
would  indicate,  is  consistent  with  the  fact  that, 
as  can  be  shown,  the  personality  of  the  presby- 
ter John,  who  likewise  lived  and  died  at  Ephe- 
sus,  was  forgotten  at  a  very  early  day.^^^  TVe 
ought  not  to  overlook  the  chronological  diffi- 
culty connected  with  the  supposition  that  Pa- 
pias, who,  according  to  the  oldest  testimony, 
suffered  martyrdom  about  the  same  time  as 
Polycarp,  i.  e.  165,  was  not  able  to  collect  the 
materials  for  his  work  among  surviving  apos- 
tles (jtaQo,  T(ov  TtQsa^vxeocoi'^ .  How  little  the  con- 
tents, so  far  as  we  know  them,  correspond  to 
what  we  should  expect  from  a  work  written  by 
a  disciple   of  the  apostles,  who  is  recording 


THE    WORK   OF  PAP  IAS.  177 

what  he  learned  from  their  own  lips,  may  be 
judged  from  what  we  will  proceed  to  give. 

Ensebiiis  cites  explicitly  from  the  contents 
of  that  work  of  Papias,  that  the  daughters  of 
Philip  informed  him  at  Hierapolis  of  the  resur- 
rection of  a  dead  man  immediately  subsequently 
to  their  father's  time,  and  that  Justus  Barsab- 
bas  had  drunken  a  goblet  of  poison  without  ex- 
periencing any  injury.  (Both  of  these  accounts 
might  be  brought  into  relation  with  expressions 
of  our  Lord,  as  in  fulfillment  of  them.)  In 
addition,  Papias  asserted  (we  give  the  accounts 
in  Eusebius  iii.  39 :  5  literally)  that  he  had 
learned  many  things  through  oral  tradition,  as 
well  as  some  unknown  Qhag^  strange)  parables 
and  teachings  of  the  Lord,  and  other  things, 
which  were  all  too  fabulous"  (|u^;^>^xwr^^«) .  To 
this  class  Eusebius  assigns  the  doctrine  of  a 
kingdom  of  a  thousand  years'  duration,  which, 
was  to  appear  sensible  on  the  earth  after  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead.  The  representation 
of  this  kingdom  was  not  given  by  Eusebius,  but 
by  Irenajus.  It  runs  as  follows  :  "  Then  shall 
come  the  days  in  wliich  vinestocks  shall  appear, 
12 


178  ORIGIN'  OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

each  one  putting  forth  ten  thousand  branches, 
each  branch  ten  thousand  shoots,  each  shoot 
ten  thousand  clusters  of  grapes,  and  each  clus- 
ter twenty-five  measures  of  wine ;  and  if  one 
of  the  saints  should  try  to  take  hold  of  one  of 
the  clusters,  another  of  the  latter  will  cry,  I 
am  better ;  lay  hold  of  me,  and  praise  the  Lord 
by  me.  In  like  manner,  an  ear  of  corn  will 
bring  forth  ten  thousand  ears,  and  each  ear  ten 
thousand  grains,"  etc.  This  representation  is 
made  by  Papias,  as  Irenaeus  testifies,  to  refer 
to  the  "elders,"  and,  through  them,  even  to 
John.  Eusebius  remarks,  in  reference  to  it, 
that  Papias,  a  man  of  very  inconsiderable  men- 
tal parts,  as  his  whole 'book  shows,  gathered  his 
notions  from  misapprehended  expressions  of 
the  apostles.  He  then  goes  on  to  say  that  there 
are  other  sayings  of  the  Lord,  dating  from  Aris- 
tion  and  John  the  presbyter,  recorded  in  the 
book  of  Papias ;  but  he  refers  those  who  may  be 
interested  in  them  to  the  work  itself.  To  this 
he  adds  that  he  will  subjoin  to  what  has  been 
already  cited  what  he  has  learned  respecting 
Mark.     This  runs,  "  And  this  says  tlie  presby- 


PAPIAS'S    WOBK.  179 

ter  :  ''  Mark,  the  interpreter  of  Peter,  wrote  care- 
fully down  all  that  hG,>ecollected,  but  not  ac- 
cording to  (T«|e/.)  the  order  of  Christ's  speak- 
ing or  working ;  for  he  neither  heard  Christ, 
nor  was  a  direct  follower  of  him,  but  of  Peter, 
as  already  intimated,  who  always  held  his  dis- 
courses  as   circumstances,  made  it  expedient, 
but  do  not  seek  to  arrange  the  sayings  of  the 
Lord  in  any  regular  order.     Mark  accomplished 
all  that  he  purposed  in  writing  what  he  had  to 
record  just  as  he  remembered  it.     There  was 
one  thing,  however,  which  he  did  keep  in  mind ; 
that  was,  not  to  omit  anything  that  he  had 
heard,  or  to  falsify  anything  which  he  under- 
took to  set  down."     To  this  statement  of  Pa- 
pias,  which,  judging  by  its  tone,  possibly  only 
refers  in  its  first  part  to  the  presbyter,  Euse- 
bius    subjoins   a   second    statement   respecting 
:^atthew,  as   follows:    ^' This   is  what   Papias 
records  respecting  Mark ;  but  of  Matthew  he 
says,  '  Matthew  recorded  in  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage the  sayings  of  the  Lord,  but  he  trans- 
lated every  one  of  them  as  best  he  could."     Li 
these  words  much  is  obscure  :  especially  doubt- 


180      ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

ful  is  it  whether  we  have  rightfully  translated 
"sayings  of  the  Lord;"V"at  least  the  casual 
words  of  Mark,  "  what  Christ  spoke  and  did," 
would  seem  to  make  it  probable  that  both  acts 
and  words  were  comprehended  under  the  single 
word  "  sayings."  But  do  these  expressions  of 
the  presbyter  and  of  Papias  —  and  tliis  is  the 
main  question  —  relate  to  the  two  Gospels  in 
our  possession  bearing  the  names  of  Matthew 
and  Mark  ?  And  if  the  -expression,  "  sayings 
of  the  Lord,"  is  to  remain  unmolested,  it  does 
not  follow  that  a  historical  clothing  of  these 
sayings  is  to  be  excluded,  since  neither  Euse- 
bius  nor  any  other  theologian  of  Christian  anti- 
quity supposed  that  the  words  of  Papias  stood 
in  antagonism  with  the  two  Gospels.  If  in  our 
time  the  inference  has  been  drawn  from  the 
words  of  Papias,  that  our  Gospel  according  to 
Mark  is  to  be  regarded  only  in  a  secondary, 
sense  as  the  work  of  Mark,  and  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  subsequent  revision  of  a  work  once 
written  by  Mark,  but  which  was  lost  sight  of 
at  a  very  early  date,  the  idea  would  show  itself 
to  be  a  manifest  freak  of  fancy.     It  would  have 


PAPIAS'S    TESTIAWNT.  181 

no  other  mission  than  to  open  to  the  freest  play 
of  conjecture  all  our  investigations  respecting 
the  origin  and  the  mutual  relations  of  our  tliree 
synoptical  Gospels. 

True  as  this  is  of  Mark,  it  is  no  less  true  of 
Matthew.  The  statement  of  Papias  has  its 
point  in  this,  that  it  ascribes  only  a  Hebrew 
text  to  Matthew  even.  If  this  statement  have 
a  satisfactory  basis,  even  if  we  accept  the  other, 
viz.,  that  every  one  translated  it  as  well  as  he 
could,  it  leaves  a  broad  margin  between  the 
primitive  Hebrew  and  our  Greek  Matthew. 
That  Hebrew  text,  like  the  primitive  Mark, 
must  have  been  lost  at  a  very  early  date,  as  not 
a  single  one  of  the  church  Fathers  saw  or  used 
it.  This  gives  rise  to  one  of  the  most  intricate 
of  questions,  the  discussion  of  which,  however, 
would  not  be  in  place  here.  We,  on  our  side, 
are  fully  satisfied  in  the  matter,  being  convinced 
that  the  acceptance  by  Papias  of  a  primitive  He- 
brew text  of  Matthew  (a  view  which  may  not 
have  been  limited  to  him,  and  may  have  been 
repeated  by  others)  rested  entirely  upon  a  mis- 
understanding.    I  will  briefly  indicate  of  what 


182       ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

character  it  was,  and  whence  it  arose.  The 
Judo-Christian  struggles  which  sprung  into 
being  during  the  lifetime  of  the  apostle  Paul 
come  more  and  more  markedly  into  the  fore- 
ground. There  were  two  parties  specially 
prominent :  that  of  the  Nazaraeans  was  more 
moderate  than  the  one  more  closely  allied  to 
philosophical  speculation,  the  Ebionites.  Both 
made  use  of  a  Gospel  which  bore  the  name  of 
Matthew,  the  former  in  the  Hebrew  language, 
the  latter  in  the  Greek,  the  same  document  to 
which  reference  was  made  on  a  preceding  page 
as  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews.  That  they  did 
not  hesitate  to  make  modifications  according  to 
their  own  taste,  in  the  text  as  they  originally 
received  it,  is  clear  from  the  standpoint  which 
they  occupied,  that  of  being  the  only  sect  char- 
acterized by  strong  self-will.  And  what  we  have 
really  learned  of  this  Gospel  shows,  as  already 
stated,  not  only  the  great  similarity  to  our  Mat- 
thew, but  also  arbitrary  deviations  which  have 
been  made  from  him  in  some  instances.  When 
it  was  said  later  —  I  mean  in  the  course  of  the 
second  century  —  that  the  Nazaraeans,  a  race 


JEROME.  •  183 

dating  from  the  very  eniGrgciice  of  Christianity, 
possessed  Matthew  in  the  Hebrew,  what  was 
more  natural  than  for  one  and  another  to  as- 
sume, wholly  in  accordance  with  the  claims  of 
the  Judo-Christian  heretics,  that  Matthew  him- 
self wrote  in  Hebrew,  and  that  the  Greek  text, 
the  one  which  was  circulated  not  only  in  the 
church,  but  among  other  Judo-Christians,  was 
a  translation  ? .  No  one  knew,  no  one  made  in- 
quiries how  divergent  the  two  versions  were ; 
and  not  only  were  such  investigations  foreign 
to  the  character  of  the  times,  but  the  exclu- 
siveness  of  the  Nazarseans  especially  drew  them 
away  from  such  researches,  making  their  home, 
as  they  did,  apart,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Dead  Sea. 

Jerome  gives  us  the  benefit  of  his  support 
in  this  explanation  of  the  statement  of  Papias. 
Jerome,  who  was  especially  skilled  in  Hebrew, 
gained  the  temporary  use  of  a  Hebrew  Gospel 
of  the  Nazaraeans,  and  at  once  proclaimed  that 
that  was  the  primitive  text  of  Matthew.  Going 
deeper  into  the  matter,  however,  he  simply  said 
that  many  held  this   Hebrew  text  to   be  the 


184      ORIGIN    OF    THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

original  from  Matthew's  own  hand ;  he  trans* 
lated  it,  moreover,  into  Greek  and  Latin,  and 
made  some  comments  upon  it.  From  these,  as 
well  as  from  some  fragments  preserved  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  church,  it  may  be  shown  that  the 
view  represented  by  many  scholars  of  late,  and 
in  a  certain  sense  shared  with  Papias,  that  the 
so-called  Hebrew  Gospel  is  older  than  Matthew, 
must  be  received  in  its  very  opposite  form  ; 
that  that  Hebrew  book  is  a  perversion  of  our 
Greek  Matthew,  whose  record  bears  the  marks 
in  the  whole  of  its  diction,  and  especially  in  the 
form  of  its  Old  Testament  quotations,  of  being 
no  translation,  but  an  original.  That  same  in- 
dependence of  our  Matthew  is  to  be  marked  in 
the  Greek  version  of  the  Hebrew  Gospel  cur- 
rent among  the  Ebionites,  only  with  this  dis- 
tinction, that  here  the  heretical  character  may, 
in  consequence  of  the  various  hands  which  exe- 
cuted it,  have  assumed  a  more  decided  character. 
Being  in  Greek,  it  was  better  known  in  the 
church  than  the  Hebrew  version ;  and  in  the  very 
earliest  epoch  it  was  held  to  be  another  text  of 
Matthew.     Tliis  agrees  with  what  Papias  wrote 


FAPIAS   AND   HIS    WORK.  185 

respecting  the  various  versions  of  Matthew, 
among  ^Yhich  he  reckoned  the  Greek  Matthew 
then  held  by  the  church. 

There  is  still  more  to  be  said  of  Papias  and 
his  work.  In  relation  to  his  efforts  to  obtain 
materials  he  wrote  that  he  believed  that  less 
was  needed  in  consequence  of  what  was  already 
written  in  books.  To  what  books  did  he  refer? 
May  it  not  have  been  our  own  Gospels  ?  The 
expression  used  would  make  this  not  impos- 
sible, but  the  whole  character  of  the  book  would 
render  it  in  the  highest  degree  improbable  ;  for 
he  made  no  secret  of  his  object  of  preparing,  on 
the  ground  of  what  was  then,  about  A.  D.  100  or 
140,^^^  related  regarding  the  Saviour,  a  kind  of 
supplement  to  the  Gospels,  and  he  may  or  may 
not  have  directed  special  reference  to  the  pro- 
phetical allusions  to  the  Lord.  The  Gospels, 
therefore,  he  could  not  have  used  as  sources, 
and  as  affording  materials  for  his  collections. 
The  books  referred  to  by  him  must  be  under- 
stood as  rather  relating  to  unauthentic  and 
more  or  less  apocryphal  records  of  the  Lord's 
career,  of  which  there  were  so  many  from  the 


186      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

earliest  date.  These  he  set  over  against  the 
oral  communications  which  he  had  received, 
whose  authenticity,  as  it  could  be  traced 
through  the  elders  back  to  the  apostles  them- 
selves, like  the  evangelical  writings,  seemed  to 
be  unquestionable. 

From  that  part  of  Papias's  work  which  Euse- 
bius  thought  was  worth  preserving,  I  have  al- 
ready cited  the  story  of  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead  which  the  daughters  of  Philip  asserted 
that  they  had  heard  of  their  father,  and  also 
the  account  of  Justus  Barsabbas  and  the  poison. 
In  a  third  passage,  where  the  Gospel  of  the 
Hebrews  gives  its  corroborative  evidence,  he  re- 
peats the  story  of  a  woman  who  had  been  ac- 
cused before  Jesus  of  sin.  In  like  manner  it 
was  stated  in  his  book,  as  we  learn  of  Catenen 
and  (Ekumenius,  that  Judas  the  betrayer  was 
of  such  monstrous  corpulence  that  he  was 
crushed  by  a  carriage  in  a  narrow  street,  and 
that  his  bowels  gushed  out  in  consequence. 
Regarding  the  further  contents  of  the  book, 
Eusebius  informs  us,  as  already  remarked, 
that,  in  addition  to  a  few  matters  altogether 


PAP  I  AS   AND    HIS    WOIiK.  187 

fabulous,  it  coutained  a  few  parables  and  say- 
ings of  our  Lord,  hitberto  unj^nown  but  utterly 
uiiwortliy  of  being  recorded ;  and  no  ecclesiasti- 
cal writer  bas  done  so,  excepting  in  tbe  case  of 
Irenaeus's  strange  account  of  tbe  kingdom  wbicb 
sliould  last  a  tbousand  years.  In  addition  to 
tbis,  Anastasius  Sinaita  bas  called  attention  to 
tbe  fact  tbat  Papias  bas  made  tbe  days  of  crea- 
tion and  paradise  refer  to  Cbrist  and  the 
cburcli ;  and  Andrew  tbe  Cappadocian,  in  bis 
Commentary  on  tbe  Apocalypse,  quoted  a  re- 
mark of  Papias  respecting  tbe  angels  wlio  bad 
been  unfaitbful  to  tbeir  trust  in  tbe  govern- 
ment of  tbe  world.  Tbe  latter  writer,  as  does 
Aretbas  also,  cites  tbe  authority  of  Papias  in 
support  of  tbe  credibility  (Aretbas  uses  tbe  word 
"  inspiration  ")  of  tbe  Apocalypse. ^^^ 

In  view  of  all  tbat  bas  been  said  above,  is 
Papias's  book  one  wbicb  can  be  accepted  as 
throwing  important  light  upon  tlie  bistory  of 
our  Gospels  ?  Tbe  judgment  of  Eusebius  re- 
specting the  man,  tbat  be  was  of  limited  under- 
standing, is  justified  not  only  by  the  details 
which  are  brought  into  view,  but  confirmed  by 


188  OB  I  GIN    OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  fact  that  his  alleged  contributions  to  our 
evangelical  literature  have  been  utterly  disre- 
garded by  the  church.  What  would  not  a  sin- 
gle parable  of  the  Lord  be  worth  if  its  authen- 
ticity could  be  substantiated !  But  no  one  has 
taken  the  slightest  notice  of  all  that  has  been 
recorded  by  Papias ;  the  fabulous  character 
which  Eusebius  charges  upon  the  book  —  a  man 
himself  characterized  by  extreme  critical  acu- 
men— has  adhered  to  the  whole  work,  and  it  is 
very  unfair  to  trace  this  charge  to  a  preposses- 
sion in  favor  of  the  Chiliasts.  The  question 
which  has  been  raised  we  must  answer  in  the 
negative,  in  view  not  only  of  the  character  of 
the  man  but  also  of  the  tendency  of  his  book, 
although  the  passage  referring  to  Matthew  and 
Mark  shows  that  that  sort  of  matter  was  not 
absolutely  excluded.  However  much  to  be 
wished,  however  important  it  is  to  see  light 
thrown  upon  that  very  early  Christian  litera- 
ture of  which  we  find  indications  in  the  preface 
to  Luke,  in  order  to  enable  us  to  see  the  origin 
and  the  mutual  relation  of  our  synoptic  Gos- 
pels cleared  up,  yet  there  is  no  use  to  be  made 


PAPIA3.  189 

of  Papias's  statements  so  far  as  they  stand  alone 
and  in  contradiction  to  the  sufficiently  authen- 
ticated facts  of  his  time.  If  he  has  nevertheless 
become  a  torch-bearer  of  critical  theology  in 
our  time,  and  a  leader  under  whose  guidance 
we  can  be  content  to  see  the  first  two  Gospels 
divided  up  into  what  are  called  their  authentic 
and  unauthentic  constituent  parts,  there  is  little 
result  gained  thereby  other  than  the  rearing  of 
an  undeserved  memorial  to  the  bishop  of  Hiera- 
polis. 

Papias  is  the  most  acceptable  and  important 
ally  of  the  opponents  of  John's  Gospel.  And 
why  ?  Papias  is  silent  respecting  this  Gospel. 
Strauss  and  Renan,  with  their  followers,'^^  make 
great  account  of  this  silence  as  opposed  to  the 
belief  in  the  authenticity  of  John's  Gospel,  and 
evidently  consider  it  something  which  can  not 
be  surmounted.  I  fear  that  my  readers  would 
not  find  it  so  after  what  has  been  said  above 
respecting  the  value  of  Papias's  book.  Does  it 
not  betray  —  I  ask  the  reader  himself — com- 
plete ignorance  of  what  Papias  has  said  re- 
garding his  own  undertaking,  to  quote  him  as 


190  ORIGIN   OF   THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

evidence  against  the  Gospel  of  John  ?  His 
remarks  respecting  Mark  and  Matthew  make  no 
difference  in  the  character  of  his  whole  book. 
It  is  insisted,  however,  that  Papias  can  not, 
from  his  silence,  have  known  anything  about 
the  Gospel  of  John,  still  less  have  acknowl- 
edged its  authenticity.  Naturally  here  was 
supposed  to  be  nothing  less  than  decisive  evi- 
dence against  the  genuineness  of  this  Gospel ; 
yet  Papias,  the  bishop  of  Hierapolis,  belonged 
even  to  the  neighborhood  of  Ephesus,  whence 
John's  Gospel  must  have  gone  forth  into  the 
world,  and  his  work  can  scarcely  have  been 
written  prior  to  the  middle  of  the  second  cen- 
tury. A  more  groundless  and  trivial  demand 
can  hardly  be  made  than  to  grant  that  the 
silence  of  Papias  respecting  the  Gospel  of 
John  constitutes  a  strong  argument  against  its 
genuineness.  For,  in  the  first  place,  to  give 
evidence  respecting  this  Gospel  formed  no  part 
whatever  of  the  plan  of  Papias ;  and  in  the  second 
place,  fi'om  tlie  fact  that  Easebius  has  cited  noth- 
ing from  Papias's  book  respecting  it,  no  infer- 
ence can  justly  be  drawn  that  there  was  noth- 


EUSEBIUS.  191 

ing  in  that  book  which  related  to  John's 
Gospel.  The  remarks  respecting  Mark  and 
Matthew  are  not  cited  by  Eusebius  in  confirma- 
tion of  the  genuineness  of  their  Gospels,  but 
simply  in  consequence  of  certain  facts  which 
they  touch  upon.  In  the  case  of  John  —  and 
this  is  the  only  inference  which  can  be  ration- 
ally drawn  from  the  silence  of  Eusebius  — 
there  were  no  circumstances  which  made  it 
necessary  to  cite  what  related  to  him. 

Since,  however,  the  opponents  of  John's  Gos- 
pel have  made  so  much  account  of  the  silence 
of  Eusebius  in  this  matter,  I  can  not  refraiii 
from  laying  before  the  reader  the  great  error  into 
which  they  have  fallen.  They  completely  over- 
look the  purpose  which  Eusebius  had  in  view 
in  writing.  Respecting  his  object  he  expresses 
himself  plainly  enough  (iii.  3  :  2),  where  he  says 
that  he  wanted  to  trace  in  the  ecclesiastical 
writers  what  portion  of  the  Antilegomena  of 
the  New  Testament  they  had  made  use  of,  and 
what  they  have  said  about  the  Homologoumena, 
as  well  as  what  does  not  fall  under  this  head.'^^ 
Every  one  can  see  that  this  does  not  mean  that 


192  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

he  meant  to  inquire  which  writings,  both  of  the 
Antilegomena  as  well  as  the  Homologoumena, 
they  had  used.  In  the  case  of  the  Antilego- 
mena, or  New  Testament  writings  of  doubtful 
authority,  the  object  is  to  indicate  the  use  of 
passages  cited,  and  in  this  way  to  make  clear 
that  this  or  that  document  was  recognized.  A 
similar  effort  is  not  made  by  him  in  the  case 
of  the  Homologoumena,  or  writings  invariably 
recognized  as  authentic,  but  he  seeks  as  ear- 
nestly as  in  the  case  of  the  other  class,  to  collect 
ancient  references  to  them,  and  what  was  an- 
ciently known  respecting  them.  That  this  con- 
struction of  his  purpose  is  the  only  correct  one, 
Eusebius  shows  not  only  in  the  case  of  Papias, 
but  of  all  other  writers  who  happen  to  come 
under  his  notice.  He  never  says  respecting 
any  one  of  the  Gospels,  This  one  or  that  one  has 
made  use  of  it :  this  is  much  oftener  the  case 
in  the  allusion  to  the  Catholic  Epistles,^^^  than 
to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Apocalypse.  But  wlieu 
he  cites  what  he  finds  in  the  older  writers  rel- 
ative to  the  Gospels,  he  brings  forward  all  that 
refers  to  their  origin,  the  time  when  they  were 


EUSEBIUS.  193 

written,  and  the  occasion  which  gave  tliem 
birlli.  This  is  the  case  with  Ircnoeus,  of  wliom 
Eusebius  writes  (v.  8)  the  following :  "  Mat- 
thew wrote  his  Gospel  among  the  Hebrews,  in 
their  own  language,  while  Peter  and  Paul  were 
preaching  in  Rome  and  strengthening  the 
church.  After  their  death,  Mark,  the  disciple 
and  interpreter  of  Peter,  wrote,  recording  what 
Peter  had  preached.  Luke,  the  companion  of 
Paul,  took  down  the  Gospel  as  it  was  announced 
by  the  latter,  and  subsequently  John,  the  disci- 
ple who  lay  on  the  Lord's  breast,  wrote  his 
Gospel  during  his  sojourn  at  Ephesus."  Very 
instructive,  moreover,  are  the  extracts  from 
Clement.  Eusebius  says  (vi.  14)  that  Clement 
briefly  treats  in  his  Hypotyposa  all  the  biblical 
writings,  not  passing  over  the  Antilegomena. 
'•  I  mean,"  he  goes  on  to  say  literally,  "  the 
Epistle  of  Jude,  the  other  Catholic  Epistles,  that 
of  Barnabas,  and  the  Revelation  ascribed  to 
Peter."  He  allows  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
to  have  been  written  by  Paul,  but  in  the  Hebrew 
language.  After  further  remarks  respecting 
this  Episile,  Eusebius  goes  on  to  say :  "  But  in 

13 


194       ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  same  treatise  Clement  communicates  a  tra- 
dition of  the  following  import  respecting  the 
true  order  of  the  Gospels  ;  those  were  first 
written  which  contain  a  genealogical  record. 
Mark's  Gospel,  moreover,  had  the  following  ori- 
gin :  When  Peter  was  puhlicly  preaching  in 
Rome,  and,  filled  with  the  Spirit,  was  announ- 
cing the  Gospel,  Mark  was  urged  by  many  who 
were  present,  to  put  on  record  the  statements 
of  Peter,  since  he  had  long  been  Peter's  com- 
panion and  could  remember  the  substance  of 
his  discourses  ;  and  when  in  accordance  with 
this  request  he  wrote  his  Gospel,  he  communi- 
cated it  to  those  who  had  asked  for  it.  Peter, 
on  his  part,  when  he  learned  what  Mark  was 
doing,  neither  took  ground  against  it,  nor  urged 
him  to  continue  in  it.  And  John,  when  he  saw 
that  that  physical,  active  side  of  the  Saviour 
had  been  fully  delineated  in  the  first  three 
Gospels,  gratified  the  wish  of  friends  that  he 
should  portray  Jesus  on  the  spiritual  side. 
This  is  what  Clemens  communicates."  We 
add  to  this  what  Eusebius  (vi.  35)  has  taken,  of 
similar  purport,  from  Origen :  that  from  tradi- 


FUSE  Br  us.  195 

tion  he  had  gathered  that  one  of  the  four  Gos- 
pels which  Jiad  universal  credence  in  God's 
church  on  earth,  tho  one  bearing  the  name  of 
Matthew,  at  first  a  collector  of  customs  and 
then  an  apostle  of  Jesus,  was  the  one  first  writ- 
ten ;  and  that  it  was  composed  in  the  Hebrew 
tongue  and  dedicated  to  believers  who  had 
come  out  from  Judaism.  The  second  in  the 
order  of  the  writing  was  Mark's,  who  had  fol- 
lowed Peter's  lead,  and  whom  Peter  himself 
recognizes  in  his  catholic  epistle  as  his  son, — 
''  My  son  Mark  greeteth  you."  The  third  was 
Luke's,  defended  by  Paul,  and  prepared  for  the 
use  of  those  who  were  converted  from  heathen- 
dom. All  these  were  followed  by  the  one  which 
bears  the  name  of  John. 

Now  does  not  a  glance  show  that  all  these 
passages  from  Irenaeus,  Clemens  and  Origeii 
were  not  quoted  by  Eusebius  for  the  purpose  of 
proving  tire  genuineness  of  the  Gospels,  and 
iust  as  little  what  Papias  has  to  say  about  Mark 
and  Matthew,  but  that  they  were  recorded 
merely  as  interesting  facts  relative  to  the  dis- 


196  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

tinctivc  history  of  each  one  of  the  evangelical 
records  ? 

But  we  have  the  most  striking  confirmation 
of  our  view  in  extracts  from  writers  still  older, 
whose  clear  and  distinct  testimony  to  our  Gos- 
pels and  other  Homologoumena,  such  as  the 
Pauline  Epistles,  are  passed  over  by  Eusebius 
in  accordance  with  his  general  design,  while  he 
records  what  seemed  to  him  to  support  the 
Antilegomena.  Here  Papias  himself  is  at  the 
head  ;  at  any  rate  Eusebius  remarks  expressly 
respecting  him  at  the  end  of  his  treatise,  that 
he  had  used  proof  texts  from  the  First  Epistle 
of  John,  and  also  from  that  of  Peter. ^^^  Further 
he  says  (iv.  18:  3)  of  Justin,  that  he  had  borne 
in  mind  the  Apocalypse  of  John,  and  expressly 
allowed  that  it  was  written  by  the  apostle ; 
but  of  the  quotations  from  the  Gospels  found 
in  him,  he  does  not  have  a  syllable.  From 
Polycarp's  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  he  draws 
the  statement  (iv.  14)  that  lie  was  indebted 
for  many  proof  texts  to  tlie  First  Epistle  of  Pe- 
ter ;  but  of  the  far  more  numerous  Pauline 
citations,  taken    from  the   majority  of  Paul's 


EUSEBIUS.  197 

Epistles,  he  says  notbing.^^^  Of  Clemens  Ro- 
maniis  he  remarks  that  he  had  taken  many 
ideas  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  often 
in  the  original  words,  while  he  passes  in  silence 
over  all  quotations  from  the  Pauline  Epistles. 
From  the  three  books  of  Theophilus  to  Autoly- 
cus,  and  from  the  one  directed  against  the 
heresy  of  Hermogenes,  he  cites  (iv.  14)  nothing 
further  than  that  in  the  latter  he  makes  use  of 
passages  in  the  Apocalypse  of  John ;  and  yet 
Theophilus  often  and  unmistakably  uses  the 
Pauline  Epistles  (e.  g.  Rom.  ii.  6,  et  seq.  ad  Au- 
tolyc.  i.  14 ;  Rom.  xiii.  7,  et  sq.  ad  Autolyc.  iii. 
14) ;  he  even  (and  this  is  the  most  pertinent  to 
our  needs)  cites  the  Gospel  of  John  under  that 
very  appellation. 

Witli  all  this,  do  we  not  apprehend  the  aim 
of  what  Eusebius  records  ?  And  may  we  not 
steer  clear  of  the  long-continued  perversion''^  of 
his  purpose  ?  On  our  part,  we  are  of  the  firm 
conviction  that  it  needs  only  an  upright  deter- 
mination to  discern  the  truth  as  it  is  in  order 
to  see  the  complete  worthlessness  of  this  famous 
Papias  argument  against  the  Gospel  of  John. 


198      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

The  absurdity  of  the  argument  that  the  un- 
fortunate Bishop  of  Hierapolis,  shortly  before 
the  middle  of  the  second  century,  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  writings  of  Luke  and  the  Epistles  of 
Paul,  because,  judging  by  Eusebius's  silence, 
he  made  no  mention  of  them,  has  been  long 
perceived ;  but  very  recently  it  has  been  set 
aside^^^  by  those  who  are  the  rudest  opponents 
of  ecclesiasticism,  on  the  ground  that  the  bishop 
may  have  been  silent  about  things  which  he 
knew,  but  which  seemed  too  trivial  to  men- 
tion. Still  less  trouble  has  it  caused  this  party 
that,  according  to  Eusebius's  express  testimony, 
Papias  made  use  of  the  First  Epistle  of  John. 
In  the  place,  some  pages  back,  where  we  had 
occasion  to  refer  to  Polycarp's  use  of  this  same 
Epistle,  it  was  said  that  the  evidence  in  favor 
of  this  Epistle  is  equally  applicable  to  the  Gos- 
pels ;  but  we  asserted  that  not  only  had  the 
identity  of  autliorsliip  in  these  two  treatises 
been  called  into  question,  but  that  there  has  been 
a  hasty  impulse  to  cast  the  Epistle  itself  over- 
board. Thus  Papias's  silence  was  to  bring  the 
Gospel  into  utter  disrepute,  while,  with  his  dis- 


INDIRECT  EVIDENCE.  199 

tinct  testimony,  lie  could  not  shield  the  Epistle 
from  the  attacks  of  overbearing  critics. 

In  view  of  such  proceedings,  it  is  a  genuine 
satisfaction  to  know  that  there  has  recently 
been  brought  to  light  a  work  printed  long  ago, 
but  quite  forgotten,  in  which  Papias  and  his 
book  give  direct  testimony  in  behalf  of  the  Gos- 
pel, which  is  assaulted  under  the  protection  of 
his  name.  It  is  a  prologue  to  the  Gospel  of 
John  in  a  Latin  manuscript  of  the  Vatican 
(leaf  244),  which,  by  a  note  in  an  old  hand,  is 
traced  back  to  the  possession  of  the  Bohemian, 
Duke  Wenceslaus  (iste  liber  creditur  fuisse 
Divi  Venceslai  Ducis  Boemise),  and  which, 
according  to  the  appearances  of  the  writing, 
dates  from  the  ninth  century.  It  is  now  desig- 
nated Yat.  Alex.  No.  14.^^  The  prologue  dis- 
closes that  it  was  composed  prior  to  the  time 
of  Jerome,  and  begins  with  the  words,  "  Evan- 
gelium  iohannis  manifestatum  et  datum  est 
ecclesiis  ab  iohanne  adhuc  in  corpore  consti- 
tuto,  sicut  papias  nomine  hierapolitanus  disci- 
pulus  iohannis  carus  in  exotericis  id  est  in  ex- 
tremis quinque  libris  retulit."     There  can  be 


200  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

no  stronger  testimony  than  this  that  Papias  did 
give  evidence  in  behalf  of  John's  Gospel.  The 
farther  purport  of  the  prologue  is,  with  all  its 
brevity,  rich  in  surprising  facts.  That  it  sprang 
from  the  work  of  Papias  seems,  however,  on 
more  grounds  than  one,  to  be  doubtful ;  and  on 
this  account  the  credibility  of  the  other  matters 
whicli  it  communicates  can  not  be  put  on  the 
same  footing  with  the  first. ^^^ 

Before  leaving  Papias,  however,  we  must  re- 
vert to  one  source  of  evidence  in  favor  of  John's 
Gospel,  which  Irengeus  (v.  36 :  2)  cites  even  from 
tlie  lips  of  the  presbyters,  those  high  authorities 
of  Papias :  "  And  on  this  account  they  say  that 
the  Lord  used  the  expression,  '  In  my  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions'"  (John  xiv.  2).  As 
the  presbyters  put  this  expression  ^^^  in  connec- 
tion with  the  degrees  of  elevation  granted  to 
the  just  in  the  City  of  God,  in  Paradise,  in 
Heaven,  according  as  they  bring  their  thirty, 
sixty,  or  a  hundred-fold  from  the  harvest,  so 
nothing  is  more  probable  than  that  Irenaeus 
borrowed  this  whole  expression  of  the  presby- 
ter, together  with   tlie   portraiture  already  re- 


PAPIAS'S   INDIRECT    TESTIMONY.  201 

fcrrcd  to  of  tlie  kingdom  of  a  thousand  years,* 
from  the  work  of  Papias.  Whether  it  comes 
from  that  source,  however,  or  not,  on  every 
ground  the  authority  of  tlio  presbyters  stands 
higher  tlian  that  of  Papias ;  it  takes  us  back 
unquestionably  to  the  close  of  the  apostolical 
period.  In  wliat  way,  and  with  wliat  machin- 
ery, the  noted  men  with  whom  unbelief  be- 
comes an  art,  and  whose  very  efforts  to  propa- 
gate it  are  labored  at  with  artistic  ingenuity, 
will  be  able  to  set  aside  this  evidence  in  sup- 
port of  John's  Gospel,  and,  together  with  the 
testimony  of  the  presbyters,  that  of  Papias  in 
the  Latin  prologue  to  John,  is  not  apparent 
to  me  ;  yet  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  skill  which 
has  defied  all  efforts  to  baffle  it  as  yet,  will  be 
able  to  meet  and  overcome  even  this  obstacle. 

And  lastly,  we  have  to  trace  the  bearings 
of  New  Testament  textual  criticism  on  the 
question  under  discussion.  This  is  the  science 
which  has  to  do  with  the  primitive  documents 
of  the  sacred  text,  the  direct  bearer  of  saving 
truth.  Investigation  into  these  primitive  docu- 
ments ought  to  tlirow  light  upon  the  history  of 


202  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  sacred  text ;  i.  e.  we  ought  to  learn  from 
them  what  in  all  times  Christendom  has  united 
in  finding  recorded  in  the  books  which  contain 
the  New  Testament;  this,  e.g.,  what  Colum- 
ba,  the  pious  and  learned  Irish  monk  of  the 
sixth  century ;  what  Ambrose  at  Milan,  and 
Augustine  in  Africa,  in  the  fourth  century ; 
what  Cyprian  and  Tertullian,  in  the  third  and 
second  centuries,  found  recorded  in  their  Latin 
copies  of  the  New  Testament :  in  like  manner, 
what  Photius,  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
in  the  tenth  ;  Cyril,  the  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  in 
the  fifth ;  Athanasius  and  Origen  of  Alexandria, 
in  the  fourth  and  third  centuries,  found  on  rec- 
ord in  the  Greek  copies  of  their  time.  The 
final  and  highest  object  of  these  investigations 
consists  in  this,  however, —  to  trace  with  exact- 
ness those  expressions  and  words  which  the 
holy  apostles  either  wrote  with  their  own  hand 
or  dictated  to  others.  If  the  New  Testament 
is  the  most  important  and  most  hallowed  book 
in  the  world,  we  must  certainly  lay  the  great- 
est value  on  all  efforts  to  possess  the  text  in 
which  it  was  originally  written  in  its  most  per- 


THE   BIBLICAL    TEXT.  203 

feet  state,  without  omissions,  without  additions, 
and  without  changes.  Should  it  be  impossible 
to  attain  this  result,  still  the  task  would  at  any 
rate  be  ours  to  approximate  as  closely  as  possi- 
ble to  the  primitive  form  of  the  text. 

Tlie  question  will  at  once  recur  to  many 
readers,  Do  our  ordinary  editions  of  the  Bible 
not  contain  the  genuine  and  true  text  ?  The 
German  Protestant,  with  his  Luther's  Bible  in 
his  hand,  would  ask  this  question  ;  so  would 
the  Catholic,  with  his  Latin  Yulgate,  or  his 
German  or  French  translation  of  it ;  so  would 
the  Englishman,  with  his  Authorized  Version; 
so  too  would  the  Russian,  with  his  Sclavonic 
text.  The  answer  to  this  question,  viewed 
from  what  side  we  will,  is  not  light.  Every 
one  of  these  translations  has  again  its  own  more 
or  less  rich  text-history,  and  there  is  no  one 
which  has  not  enough  of  the  original  to  insure 
the  degree  of  faith  necessary  to  salvation.  But 
if  the  effort  be  made  to  see  how  closely  each 
follows  the  original,  how  truly  each  has  pre- 
served the  text  as  it  was  given  by  the  apostles, 
it  must  be  compared  with   the  original  text, 


204      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

from  which,  directly  or  indirectly,  all  have 
flowed.  We  know  that  the  Greek  is  the  origi- 
nal text  of  the  New  Testament.  And  how  is  it 
with  the  genuineness  of  this  text  ? 

When  the  discovery  of  printing,  in  the  first 
quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  applied  to 
the  publication  of  the  Greek  New  Testament, 
Erasmus,  at  Bale,  and  Cardinal  Ximenes,  at 
Alcala,  took  as  the  basis  of  the  work  such  man- 
uscripts as  were  at  their  command.  Thoir  edi- 
tions were  repeated  elsewhere,  often  with  slight 
modification  of  the  original  text,  according  to 
other  manuscripts.  The  learned  Parisian  print- 
er, Robert  Stephens,  introduced  some  such 
modifications ;  the  Elzevir  followed,  the  work 
of  a  Leyden  printer ;  and  soon  the  force  of 
usage  became  so  powerful  that  the  theologians 
accepted  the  text  as  it  was  established  by  the 
Erasmus,  Elzevir,  and  Robert  Etienne  editions 
as  a  kind  of  authorized  general  edition.  In  the 
mean  time,  scholars  had  begun  to  trace  new 
sources,  —  Greek  manuscripts  written  in  the 
first  century,  as  well  as  manuscripts  prepared 
for  the  translations  effected  in  the  first  five  cen- 


THE    BIBLICAL    TEXT.  205 

turies  into  Latin,  Gothic,  Coptic,  Etiiiopian, 
Armenian ;  to  these  may  be  added  the  textual 
readings  which  are  found  recorded  in  the  works 
of  the  church  Fathers  of  the  second  century. 
From  this  there  issued  at  last  the  result  that, 
under  the  hand  of  the  various  transcribers, 
learned  as  well  as  unlearned,  the  New  Testa- 
ment text  has  assumed  extraordinary  diversity 
in  its  readings.  And,  although  this  diversity 
is,  in  thousands  of  passages,  limited  to  merely 
grammatical  forms,  having  no  relation  to  the 
sense,  there  is  no  lack  of  places  which  involve 
more  important  matters,  and  which  are  of  his- 
torical and  dogmatic  value.  After  this  had 
gone  on  so  far  that  the  whole  of  Christendom 
was  interested  in  the  highest  degree  in  the 
matter,  earnest  men,  with  whom  it  was  a  sacred 
duty  to  ascertain  what  is  truth  ratlier  than  to 
conform  with  established  usage,  conceived  that 
it  was  their  especial  task  to  reform  the  ordi- 
nary text  by  incorporating  upon  it  the  results 
of  examining  the  ancient  but  later  discovered 
manuscripts.  Still,  it  is  only  in  the  most  recent 
period  that  men  have  dared   to  lay  aside   the 


206  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR  GOSPELS. 

ordinary  text,  which  had  no  scientific  guaranty 
of  autlienticity,  and  to  bring  into  exclusive  use 
the  text  of  the  earliest  documents.  For  it 
needs  no  proof  that  the  oldest  documents,  those 
wliich  run  back  to  within  a  few  centuries  of  the 
first  composition,  must  be  truer  to  the  original 
than  those  which  were  written  a  thousand  years 
or  more  subsequently  to  the  first  composition. 
In  giving  the  preference  to  the  most  ancient 
documents,  however,  there  is  the  rigid  duty  of 
examining  'them  most  carefully  in  respect  to 
their  intrinsic  character  and  their  mutual  rela- 
tions. With  this  is  to  be  coupled  the  fact  that 
our  various  most  ancient  manuscripts  give  the 
text  with  a  great  diversity  of  readings,  through 
which  cause  their  use  is  made  much  more  diffi- 
cult in  establishing  the  original  text  given  by 
the  apostles.  All  the  more  necessary  was  it, 
therefore,  to  seek  the  oldest  and  most  trustwor- 
thy of  them  all.  In  order  to  do  this,  Richard 
Bentley  considered  it  important  to  give  the 
preference  to  that  text  which  shows  the  closest 
accordance  with  the  oldest  Greek  documents 
and  the  Latin  text  of  the  fourth  century.     In 


THE    BIBLICAL    TEXT.  207 

accordance  with  Beutley's  judgment,  Carl  Lach- 
mann  undertook,  with  very  few  aids,  the  resto- 
ration of  the  text  which  was  generally  diffused 
in  the  fourth  century ;  for  there  seems  to  be  no 
possibility  of  reaching  any  documentary  evi- 
dence which  goes  back  of  that  age.  Tliere  is 
no  doubt  that  the  earliest  Latin  translation  of 
the  Gospels  —  to  limit  ourselves  to  this  —  was 
written  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  second 
century ;  for,  as  I  have  had  occasion  to  remark 
above,  the  Latin  translator  of  Irenaeus,  before 
the  close  of  the  second  century,  and  Tertullian 
in  the  last  decade  of  the  same  century,  appear 
to  have  been  in  undisputed  dependence  upon 
it.  This  oldest  translation  we  possess  ^^^  at  the 
present  time,  —  certainly  in  its  main  body  ;  for 
our  oldest  documents,  reaching  back  to  the  fifth 
century,  and  which  bear  relation  to  the  text 
which  was  prepared  in  North  Africa,  the  home 
of  Tertullian,  find  a  frequent  confirmation  of 
their  readings  in  the  two  witnesses  already 
mentioned,  the  translators  of  Irenaeus  and  Ter- 
tullian. And  on  this  account,  in  behalf  of 
those  texts  which  men   have   not  recorded  in 


208      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

their  writings,  it  must  be  admitted  that  they 
correspond  to  the  very  earliest  edition,  or  are 
very  nearly  allied  to  it.  By  the  discovery  of 
the  Sinaitic  manuscript  we  have  advanced  yet 
farther ;  for  tliis  text,  which,  on  palaeographical 
grounds,  lias  been  assigned  by  competent  schol- 
ars to  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  stands 
in  such  surprising  alliance  with  the  oldest  Latin 
translation  that  it  is  really  to  be  regarded  as 
coincident  with  the  text  which,  soon  after  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  served  the  first 
Latin  translator,  the  preserver  of  the  so-called 
Itala,  as  a  foundation.  And  that  this  text  was 
not  an  isolated  one  is  manifest  from  the  fact 
that  the  oldest  Syrian  text,  contained  in  a  man- 
uscript of  the  fifth  century,  lately  discovered  in 
the  Nitrian  desert,  as  well  as  Origen  and  others 
of  the  earliest  Fathers,  stands  in  specially  close 
connection  with  it.  The  Syrian  text  just  men- 
tioned possesses  on  its  side  a  power  of  carrying 
conviction  quite  analogous  to  the  Itala,  and 
manifesting  it  in  that  double  way  which  I  have 
endeavored  to  set  forth  ;  for  the  latest  investi- 
gations leave  no  doubt  that  the  Peshito,  which 


THE   BIBLICAL    TEXT.  209 

is  universally  ascribed  to  the  close  of  the  second 
century,  presupposes  the  existence  of  the  Ni- 
trian  text,  so  that  the  latter  must  have  arisen 
about  the  middle  of  the  second  century. 

What  now  follows  from  all  these  considera- 
tions in  the  way  of  answering  the  question 
which  has  been  raised  ?  Two  things  we  have 
to  make  use  of  and  apply  in  the  most  emphatic 
manner.  At  the  very  outset  of  this  work  I 
have  indicated  it  as  a  noteworthy  fact,  that  soon 
after  the  middle,  and  even  about  the  middle,  of 
the  second  century,  the  four  Gospels  underwent 
an  undoubted  common  translation,  and  ap- 
peared in  a  Latin  as  well  as  in  a  Syriac  version. 
These  translations  not  only  prove  the  same 
thing  which  the  harmonistic  treatment  of  the 
Gospels  by  Tatian  of  Syria  and  by  Theophilus 
at  almost  the  same  epoch  proves ;  they  prove  at 
the  same  time  much  more,  namely,  that  as  the 
Gospels  of  Luke  and  John  were  in  existence  at 
that  time  in  the  same  form  in  which  we  have 
them  now,  so  were  those  of  Matthew  and  Mark. 
If  isolated  citations  from  the  oldest  epoch  allow 
tlie  suspicion  that  instead  of  our  Matthew,  the 

14 


210  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

nearly  related  and  only  subsequently  discrim- 
inated Gospel  of  the  Hebrews  was  perhaps 
used,  or  that  even  our  Mark  had  then  taken 
that  primitive  form  which  is  indicated  in  the 
recent  investigations  of  Papias's  account,  yet 
the  oldest  Latin  texts  of  these  Gospels  com- 
pletely exclude  this  suspicion,  at  least  so  far  as 
the  middle  of  the  second  century  is  concerned. 
They  give  thoughtful  investigators  as  little 
ground  for  believing  that  these  texts  might 
shortly  before  have  been  developed  by  unknown 
hands  from  a  previous  form,  and  now  in  an 
unskillful  fashion,  after  the  change  which  has 
been  wrought  upon  them  by  the  Latin  Church, 
are  held  to  be  the  original  draft.  Even  here 
the  Nitrian  text  stands  by  the  side  of  the 
Itala  in  confirmation  of  it,  omitting,  however, 
the  Gospel  of  Mark,  with  the  exception  of 
the  last  four  verses.  It  is  well  known  that 
the  discoverer  and  editor  of  this  text  ut- 
tered his  conviction,"  and  strengthened  it  with 
plausible  proofs,  that  in  the  case  of  the  Gospel 
of  Matthew  this  text  may  have  sprung  from 
the  orighial   Ilcbrew  form.     In   opposition  to 


AN  EARLY    TEXT-HISTORT.  211 

this  decidedly  erroneous  impression,  the  agree- 
ment of  the  same  Syrian  text  with  our  oldest 
Greek  and  Latin  documents  confirms  in  the 
most  striking  manner  our  conclusion  in  rela- 
tion to  the  Greek  text  of  Matthew,  as  well  as 
the  conclusion  that  in  the  middle  of  the  second 
century  there  was  no  other  text  of  Matthew 
than  the  one  which  we  possess.  And  so  far  as 
Mark  is  concerned,  this  Syrian  translator  bears 
witness  in  support  of  the  closing  verses  already 
employed  by  Irenseus,  which,  according  to  de- 
cisive critical  authority,  are  not  genuine,  but 
which  were  appended  to  the  accepted  text  of 
Mark's  Gospel.^'^^ 

But  I  have  yet  another  matter  of  textual 
criticism  to  take  note  of,  which  in  my  judg- 
ment affords  evidence  that  our  collective  Gos- 
pels are  to  be  traced  back  at  least  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  second  or  the  end  of  the  first  cen- 
tury. As  on  the  one  side  the  text  of  the  Si- 
naitic  manuscript,  together  with  the  oldest  Itala 
text,  is  to  be  assigned  specifically  to  the  use  of 
the  second  century,  so  on  the  other  side  it  is  easy 
to  establish  that  that  same  text,  in  spite  of  all 


212  ORIGIN-   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

its  superiority  over  other  documents,  had  as- 
sumed even  their  differences  in  many  respects 
from  the  primitive  purity  of  the  reading,  and 
that  it  even  then  presupposed  a  complete  text- 
history.  We  are  not  directed  in  this  excki- 
sively  to  the  Codex  Sinaiticus  and  one  or  another 
of  the  Itala  manuscripts,  together  with  Irenaeus 
and  TertuUian :  but  we  can  accept  all  these 
documents,  which  we  must  assign,  partly  from 
necessity  and  partly  with  the  greatest  proba- 
bilityj  to  the  second  century ;  the  fact  is  unde- 
niable that  there  was  even  then  a  rich  text-his- 
tory. We  mean  by  this  that  even  prior  to  the 
second  half  of  the  second  century,  while  copy 
after  copy  of  our  Gospels  was  made,  not  only 
are  there  many  errors  of  transcribers  to  be 
found,  but  the  phraseology  and  the  sense  in 
particular  places  are  changed,  and  larger  or 
smaller  additions  are  made  from  apocryphal 
and  oral  sources.  With  all  this,  such  changes 
are  not  excluded  which  were  the  result  of  put- 
ting together  separate  parallel  passages,  and 
these  testify  in  a  striking  manner  to  the  early 
union  of  our  Gospels  in  a  single  canon.     If  this 


AX  EARLY   TEXT-HISTORY.  213 

is  really  'the  case,  there  is  an  important  stadi- 
um of  the  textual  history  of  our  four  Gospels 
prior  to  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  prior 
to  the  time  when  canonical  authority,  together 
with  the  more  settled  ecclesiastical  order,  made 
arbitrary  changes  in  the  sacred  text  more  and 
more  difficult,  —  this  I  shall  take  occasion  to 
show  fully  at  another  time,  —  and  for  the  lapse 
of  this  history  we  must  assume  at  least  a  half  cen- 
tury»  According  to  this,  must  not — I  dare  not 
say  the  origin  of  the  Gospels,  but  —  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  evangelical  canon  be  set  at  the 
close  of  the  first  century  ?  And  is  not  this  re- 
sult all  the  more  certain  from  the  coincidence 
"with  it  of  all  the  historical  factors  of  the  second 
century,  which  we  have  reviewed  without  any 
reserve  ? 

There  will  be  those,  it  is  not  to  be  doubted, 
who  will  accuse  us  of  one-sidedness  and  want 
of  thoroughness.  And  in  truth  we  have  passed 
over  some  things  whose  examination  would 
have  been  in  accordance  with  my  purpose  to 
pass  in  review  all  the  oldest  documents  which 
could  throw  light  upon  the  Gospels  or  illumi- 


214  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

nate  their  primitive  recognition.  If  we  have 
omitted  anjtliing,  it  is  only  because  the  infer- 
ences to  be  drawn  from  them  touch  too  closely, 
as  it  has  seemed  to  us,  —  perhaps  wrongly, — 
upon  the  domain  of  hypothesis  to  give  really 
solid  results  to  our  investigation.  But  in  what 
we  have  passed  over  there  is  nothing  which  is 
antagonistic  to  what  has  been  already  advanced. 
We  allude,  e.  g.,  to  the  earliest  traces  of  a  ca- 
nonic indication  and  collection  of  apostolicwrit- 
ings,  including  the  earliest  appendices  to  the 
New  Testament,  and  contained  in  a  portion  of 
the  New  Testament  itself  as  the  church  estab- 
lished it  in  the  fourth  century.  This  is  certainly 
the  most  recent  portion,  viz.,  the  Second  Epistle 
of  Peter,  where,  (iii.  16),  reference  is  made 
not  only  to  the  collection  of  the  Pauline  Epis- 
tles, but  of  other  New  Testament  writings ;  ^^ 
also  the  closing  verses  of  John's  Gospel,  of 
which  verse  twenty-fourth  is  held  with  the  most 
correctness  as  the  oldest  testimony  from  the 
hand  of  a  presbyter  of  Ephesus  in  favor  of 
John's  authorship.^^^  The  Testaments  of  the 
twelve    patriarchs,^^'   too,   contain    undeniable 


MISCONCEPTIONS.  215 

traces  of  an  acquaintance  with  the  books  of  the 
New   Testament,  the    Gospels   as  well   as   the 
Pauline  Epistles  and  the  Apocalypse ;  they  con- 
firm, therefore,  the  existence  of  a  collection  of 
the  books  of  the  New  Testament  at  the  time 
when   they  were  written,   and   this   time   can 
scarcely  be  set  later  than  the  close  of  the  first 
or  the  opening  of  the  second  century .^^^     But 
so  far  as  definite  details  are  concerned,  such  as 
can  be  drawn  into  active  service  by  those  who 
are   most   determined    in   their   opposition   to 
John's    Gospel,  we.  can    discover  nothing   but 
misunderstanding  and  unjustified  conclusions. 
It  is  a  misunderstanding,  for  example,  to  bring 
the  celebration  in  Asia  Minor  of  the  feast  of 
the  Passover  into  antagonism  with  the  Gospel 
of  John ;    for  the  festival   as  it  is    celebrated 
there,  which  builds  simply  upon  the  example  of 
John,  is  erroneously  understood  as  if  it  related 
to  the  Last  Supper,  while  it  really  commemo- 
rates the  death  of  Jesus  the  true  paschal  Lamb 
(1  Cor.  V.  7),  the  historic  basis  being  given  for 
it  in*  John's  Gospel.     But  when  men  bring  the 
relation  of  John's  to  the  synoptic  Gospels  as 


216  ORIGIN  OF   THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  ground  for  suspicion  respecting  the  apos- 
tolic origin  of  the  former,  and  cite  the  pecu- 
liarity of  John's  diction,  as  well  as  that  of  the 
Apocalypse,  the  universal  character  of  his  Gos- 
pel compared  with  Gal.  ii.  9,  and  its  dogmatic 
character,  especially  in  relation  to  the  person 
of  Christ,  as  brought  into  contrast  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  Christian  doctrine,  they  profess  to 
know  more  than  it  is  granted  to  man  to 
know,  and  use  what  is  naturally  hypothetical 
and  uncertain  to  throw  doubts  over  what  is 
clear  and  fixed.  Against  tactics  which  rely 
upon  the  appearance  of  knowledge  and  cun- 
ningly shaped  liypotheses,  and  which  are 
shrewdly  devised  to  entrap  the  simple,  there 
is  need  of  summoning  the  aid  of  definite  and 
ascertained  facts. 

We  can  only  call  it  a  welcome  occurrence 
that  through  the  radical  character  of  the  two 
most  distinguished  modern  biographers  of  Je- 
sus, the  Tubingen  fantasy-builder  and  the  Pa- 
risian caricaturist,  the  contrasts  between  belief 
and  disbelief  in  the  Gospels  and  the  Lord 
have  been  made   thorouglily  apparent.      It  is 


PREVALENT  EURO  US.  217 

only  clear  vision  which  leads  to  the  gift  of  sure 
decision.  Never  before  have  theologians  joined 
in  with  the  Christian  church  and  tlie  whole 
world  of  culture  in  demanding  so  appositely  as 
now,  How  is  it  down  at  the  foundations,  respect- 
ing our  evangelical  belief  in  the  Lord  ?  Nothing 
is  easier  than  to  deceive  those  who  are  not  in  a 
position  which  enables  them  to  answer  in  a 
scientific  manner  this  greatest  question  of 
Christendom ;  nothing  easier  than  to  mislead 
them  under  a  pretense  of  learned  and  honest 
investigation.  Yet  the  character  of  this  age 
grants  all  license  to  tlijorough  and  honorable 
inquiry  in  matters  where,  in  former  ages  less 
intelligent  than  ours,  faith,  and  a  faith  too 
that  often  enough  was  blind,  had  unquestioned 
sway.  It  is  just  from  this  that  many  who  have 
not  been  able  to  enter  deeply  into  this  class  of 
studies  have  come  to  believe  that  if  we  look 
at  the  matter  thoroughly  and  scientifically 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  doubt  about  the  facts  of 
Jesus'  life.  And  scarcely  anything  has  had 
more  factitious  influence  in  inducing  this  in- 
credulity than  the  often-repeated  statement  that 


218      0RMG1¥   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

the  ancient  history  of  the  Christian  church- 
gives  the  most  conchisive  testimony  against  the 
genuineness  of  our  Gospels,  especially  that  of 
John,  in  which  the  divine-human  character  of 
the  Saviour  of  the  world  stands  forth  to  the 
offense  and  confusion  of  an  unchristian  age 
more  manifestly  than  in  the  synoptic  Gospels. 
In  the  course  of  this  investigation  we  have 
been  brought  to  exactly  the  opposite  view.  To 
awaken  doubts  respecting  the  genuineness  of 
our  Gospels,  and  John's  especially,  in  the  minds 
of  the  lettered  as  well  as  the  unlettered,  to 
cause  many  to  deny  them  even,  is  the  work  of 
that  skeptical  spirit  which  has  attained  to  al- 
most undisputed  pre-eminence  during  the  past 
hundred  years.  And  yet  there  are  few  instances 
in  the  collective  literature  of  antiquity  of  so 
general  and  commanding  assent  being  given  to 
works  of  a  historical  character  as  to  our  four 
Gospels. 

Against  that  kind  of  unbelief  which  has 
taken  root  in  the  modern  frivolous  school  of 
religious  literature,  in  that  earth-born  emanci- 
pation of  the  human  spirit  which  will  allow  of 


CONCLUSION.  219 

no  subjugation  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  science  has 
no  weapons.  It  is  their  unbelief  which  has  in- 
corporated itself  into  Kenan's  book  :  therein  lies 
its  power,  its  secret  of  success ;  there  is  no 
need  of  learned  inquiry  respecting  it :  the  par- 
ti-colored rags  which  it  has  borrowed  of  science 
only  partially  conceal  the  naked  limbs.  It  is 
quite  otherwise  with  the  learned  arguments 
which  have  been  brought  against  the  life  of 
Jesus,  and  tlie  historic  attacks  which  have  been 
made  upon  the  authenticity  of  the  evangelical 
sources.  Here  we  have  to  protest  with  the  ut- 
most decisiveness,  but  on  the  ground  of  rigid 
scientific  investigation.  The  victory  of  God 
in  behalf  of  right  belongs  to  truth  alone. 
It  is  only  a  petty  littleness  of  belief  that  can 
believe  that  the  sacred  interests  of  truth  are 
Imperiled  by  the  use  of  those  dishonored  weap- 
ons which  are  so  much  in  vogue  in  the  present 
age.  But  whoever  stands  in  the  interest  of 
that  truth  which  is  to  enter  into  victory  must 
display  his  faitli  in  the  result  by  no  timid  count- 
ing of  costs,  but  by  the  constant  exercise  of 
his  best  knowledge  and  most  conscientious  en- 
deavors. 


NOTES. 


Note  1,  p.  12.  —  Hilgenfeld's  friends  are  more 
outspoken  in  this  matter  than  even  he  is,  while 
they  completely  echo  his  words.  Thus  Volkmar, 
p.  110 :  "  The  Sinaitic  Bible  is  asserted  to  have  no 
greater  value  or  significance  than  to  make  certain 
the  fact  that  the  canon  of  our  four  Gospels,  as 
well  as  the  whole  Old  Catholic  New  Testament, 
was  in  existence  at  the  commencement  of  the 
the  second  century."  P.  120 :  "  This  which  has 
been  added  is,  therefore,  a  ne  plus  ultra ;  in  this 
phrase,  scrip'tum  est,  are  involved  not  only  the 
canonicity  of  Matthew,  but  the  fourfoldness  of 
our  Gospels,  and  the  authenticity  of  the  whole 
New  Testament."  In  like  tone  A.  Ritschl,  in  the 
Jahrb.  fur  deutsch.  Theol.  1866, 2d  pt.  p.  355  :  "  But 
it  is  arbitrarily  foisted  upon  the  words  of  the  here- 
siarch,  as  it  is  also  an  arbitrary  supposition,  that 
the  church  from  the  apostolic  time  down  was  fur- 
nished with  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
with  bishops  who  were  the  successors  of  the  apos- 
tles. And  whoever  trusts  Tertullian  so  far  as  the 
former  statement  is  concerned,  has  no  right  to  re* 

221 


222      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

fuse  to  recognize  with  him  the  apostohcal  succes- 
sion of  bishops.  As  all  the  studies  of  Tischendoi-f 
into  the  history  of  the  canon  lead  him  to  believe 
that  no  one  of  the  New  Testament  Scriptures  can 
be  looked  at  by  itself  and  as  destitute  of  canonical 
authority"  [these  words  are  intended  to  convey 
the  meaning  that  the  canonization  of  Matthew,  tes- 
tified to  by  Barnabas,  is  to  be  confined  to  Matthew 
alone.  That  they  signify  no  less  than  that  the  be- 
ginning of  a  canon  of  the  New  Testament  can  not 
be  limited  to  a  single  document,  can  be  clearly 
seen  in  the  passage  cited,  and  is  there  fully  dwelt 
upon ;  the  ascribing  of  another  meaning  is  a  per- 
version of  my  words],  "  and  as  he  finds  himself 
oblisfed  to  assiorn  the  establishment  of  the  canon  to 
the  close  of  the  first  century  ....  If,  now,  it  is 
a  result  to  be  almost  envied  that  one  should  con- 
vince himself  so  easily  of  the  correctness  of  his 
judgment  respecting  the  history  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment canon,  they  seem  to  be  much  more  to  be 
envied  who  want  to  confirm  this  result  by  holding 
firmly  to  the  doctrine  of  an  ajjostolical  appoint- 
ment of  bishops  who  had  authority  commensurate 
with  that  of  the  apostles."  These  last  words  are 
a  mere  stupid  joke,  and  are  to  be  accounted  as 
such;  they  are,  therefore,  of  the  same  character, 
and  are  animated  by  the  same  spirit,  as  that  which 
has  caused  other  men  to  heap  calumny  upon  me. 

Note  2,  p.  14.  —  I  might  perhaps  repel  the  charge 


NOTES.  223 

that  an  over-heated  zealous  activity,  akin  to  that 
of  the  Spanish  knight-errant,  lies  dormant  in  my 
words,  by  citing  the  expression  of  the  "  Wiener 
Allgem.  Literatur  Zeitung  zunachst  fur  das  kathol- 
ische  Deutschland,  No.  25:  "So  for  as  real  learning 
and  famiUarity  with  the  subject  are  concerned, 
Strauss  compared  with  Tischendorf  is  a  pigmy  by 
a  giant."  ..."  One  word  of  his  weighs  more  than 
the  whole  book  of  another,  however  carefully  pre- 
pared." 

Note  3,  p.  17.— Zur  Quellenkritik  des  Epiph- 
anios,  1865,  p.  68 :  "  Herakleon  does  not  specifically 
mention  Irenasus."  P.  168:  "Epiphanios  did  not 
find  the  name  of  Herakleon  mentioned  in  Ireujcus, 
but  he  unquestionably  learned  of  Hippolytus  what 
he  knew  about  him."  "  Even  the  order  is  given 
by  Irenaeus.  And  just  because  he  does  not  men- 
tion Herakleon,  Epiphanios  thinks  that  he  must 
put  him  behind  Mark." 

Note  4,  p.  17.  —  This  may  do  something  toward 
clearing  away  the  charge  which  has  often  been 
brought  against  me,  that  I  have  not  read  Justin 
and  others,  and  merely  copy  what  I  find  in  "  In- 
troductions." 

Note  5,  p.  19. —  The  small,  popular  edition  of  this 
work  has  already  been  published  in  France  by  the 
Toulouse  Societe  des  livres  religieux,  in  England 


224      OBIGiy   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

by  the  Religious  Tract  Society,  and  in  America. 
In  the  latter  country  a  German  edition  has  also 
been  issued.  The  French  translator  is  Prof.  Sard- 
inoux  of  Montauban,  the  English  translator  Mr. 
J.  B.  Heard,  and  the  American,  Prof  H.  B.  Smith. 

Note  6,  p.  25.  —  Tacit.  Annal.  xv.  44. 

Note  7,  p.  25.  — Pliny's  Epist.  x.  97. 

Note  8,  p.  25.  —  The  statement  of  Suetonius 
(Claud.  25),  that  Claudius  (about  52  after  Christ) 
banished  the  Jews  from  Rome  because,  incited  by 
Christ,  they  made  a  perpetual  uproar,  ought  hardly 
to  be  cited  here. 

Note  9,  p.  28.  —  Renan,  p.  xxvii.  On  est  tente 
de  croire  que  Jean  .  .  .  fut  froisse  de  voir  qu'on 
ne  lui  accordait  pas  dans  I'histoire  du  Christ  une 
assez  grande  place ;  qu'alors  il  commen9a  a  dieter 
une  foule  de  choses  qu'il  savait  mieux  que  les  autres, 
avec  rintention  de  montrer  que,  dans  beaucoup  de 
cas  oti  on  ne  parlait  que  de  Pierre,  il  avait  figure 
avec  et  avant  lui. 

Note  10,  p.  28.  — Page  xxvii.  N'excluant  pas 
une  certaine  rivalite  de  I'auteur  avec  Pierre. 

Note  11,  p.  28.  —  Page  xxvii.  Sa  haine  contre 
Judas,  haine  anterieure  peut-etre  a  la  trahison. 


NOTES.  225 

Note  12,  p.  28.  —  Page  403.  Selon  une  tradition 
Jesus  aurait  trouve  iin  appui  clans- la  propre  fernrae 
du  prociirateur.  Celle-ci  avait  pu  entrevoir  le 
doux  Galilean  de  quelque  fenetre  du  palais,  don- 
nant  sur  les  cours  du  temple.  Peut-etre  le  revit- 
elle  en  songe,  et  le  sang  de  ce  beau  jeune  homrae, 
qui  allait  etre  verse,  lui  donna-t-il  le  cauchemar. 

Note  13,  p.  29.  —  Page  361.  Peut-etre  Lazare, 
pale  encore  de  sa  maladie,  se  fit-il  entoui-er  de 
bandelettes  comme  un  mort  et  enferraer  dans  son 
tombeau  de  famille.  .  .  .  L'emotion  qu'eprouva  Je- 
sus pres  du  tombeau  de  son  ami,qu'il  croyait  mort, 
put  etre  prise  par  les  assistants  pour  ce  trouble,  ce 
fremissement  qui  accompagnaient  les  miracles; 
I'opinion  populaire  voulant  que  la  vertu  divine  fiit 
dans  I'homme  comme  un  principe  epileptique  et 
convulsif.  Jesus  .  .  .  desira  voir  encore  une  fois 
celui  qu'il  avait  aime,  et,  la  pierre  ayant  ete  ecartee, 
Lazare  sortit  avec  ses  bandelettes  et  la  tete  en- 
touree  d'un  suaire.  .  .  Intimement  persuades  que 
Jesus  etait  thaumaturge,  Lazare  et  ses  deux  soeurs 
purent  aider  un  de  ses  miracles  a  s'executer  .  .  . 
L'etat  de  leur  conscience  etait  celui  des  stigma- 
tisees,  des  convulsionnaires,  des  possedees  de  con- 
vent. .  .  ,  Quant  ^  Jesus,  il  n'etait  pas  plus  maitre 
que  Saint  Bernard,  que  saint  Fran9ois  d' Assise  de 
moderer  I'avidite  de  la  foule  et  de  ses  propres  dis- 
ciples pour  le  merveilleux.  La  mort,  d'ailleurs, 
allait  dans  quelques  jours  lui  rendre  sa  liberte  di- 

15 


226  ORIGIN  OF   THE  FOUR    GOSPELS. 

vine,  et  Tarracher  aux  fatales  necessites  d'un  role 
qui  chaque  jourdevenait  j^lus  exigeant,  plus  diffi 
cile  ^  soutenir. 

Note  14,  i3.29. — Matt.  xxvi.  36,  et  sq.;  Mark  xiv. 
32,  et  sq. ;  Luke  xxii.  40,  et  sq. 

Note  15,  p.  30.  — Page  378,  et  sq. 

Note  16,  p.  30. —  Page  209.  La  profonde 
seckeresse  de  la  nature  aux  environs  de  Jerusalem 

devait  aj  outer  au  deplaisir  de  Jesus. 

§ 

Note  17,  p.  30.  — Page  28.  Si  jamais  le  monde 
reste  ckretien,  mais  arrive  a  une  notion  meilleure 
de  ce  qui  constitue  le  respect  des  origines,  veut 
remjDlacer  par  d'autkentiques  lieux  saints  les  sanc- 
tuaires  apocry|Dkes  et  mesquins  oti  s'attackait  la  pi- 
ete  des  ages  grossiers,  c'est  sur  cette  kauteur  de  Naz- 
aretk  qu'il  batira  son  temple.  La,  au  point  d'ap- 
parition  du  ckristianisme  et  au  centre  d'action  de 
son  fondateur,  devrait  s'elever  la  grande  eglise  oti 
tons  les  ckretiens  pourraient  prier.  La  aussi,  sur 
cette  teiTC  oti  dorment  le  ckarpentier  Josepk  et 
des  milkers  de  Nazareens  oublies. 

Note  18,  p.  31.  — Page  426.  Sa  tete  s'inclina 
sur  sa  poitrine,  et  il  expira.  Repose  maintenant 
dans  ta  gloire,  noble  initiateur.  Ton  oeuvre  est 
ackevee  \  ta  divinite  est  fondee.    Ne  crains  plus  de 


NOTES.  227 

voir  crouler  par  line  fliute  Tedifice  cle  tes  efforts. 
Pao-e  C7.  Toute  riiistorie  du  christianisme  nais- 
sant  est  devenue  de  la  sorte  line  delicieuse  pastor- 
ale. Un  Mcssie  aux  repas  de  noces,  la  courtisane  et 
le  bon  Zacliee  appeles  a  ses  festins,  les  fondateurs 
du  royaume  du  ciel  comme  un  cortege  de  para- 
nymplies.  Page  219.  Le  charmant  docteur,  qui 
pardonnait  a  tous  pourvu  qu'on  Taimat,  ne  pouvait 
trouver  beaucoup  d'echo  dans  ce  sanctuaire  des 
values  disputes  et  des  sacrifices  vieillis.  Page  222. 
L'orgueil  du  sang  lui  parait  Tennemi  capital  qu'il 
faut  combattre.  Jesus,  en  d'autres  termes,  n'est 
plus  juif.  II  est  revolutionnaire  au  plus  haut  de- 
gre ;  il  appelle  tous  les  hommes  a  un  culte  fond6 
sur  leur  seule  qualite  d'enfants  de  Dieu.  Page  316. 
Parfois  on  est  tente  de  croire  que,  voyant  dans  sa 
propre  mort  un  moyen  de  fonder  son  royaume,  il 
con9ut  de  propos  delibere  le  dessein  de  se  faire 
tuer.  D'autres  fois  la  mort  se  presente  a  lui  comme 
un  sacrifice,  destine  a  apaiser  son  Pere  et  a  sauver 
les  hommes.  Un  goilt  singulier  de  persecution  et 
de  supplices  le  penetrait.  Son  sang  lui  paraissait 
comme  I'eau  d'un  second  bapteme  dont  il  devait 
etre  baigne,  et  il  semblait  possede  d'une  hate 
etrange  d'aller  au-devant  de  ce  bapteme  qui  seul 
pouvait  etanclier  sa  soif. 

Note  19,  p.  36. — That  this  was  the  true  date 
when  this  catalogue  was  proposed,  is  rendered 
more  certain  by  the  circumstance  that  the  author 


228  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

indicates  the  episcopate  of  Pius,  which  is  generally 
computed  to  have  extended  from  142  to  157,  by 
the  words  temporibus  nostris  and  nuperrime,  i.  e, 
"in  our  time,"  and  "very  recently."  And  even 
when  he  follows  his  own  conjectures,  or  those  which 
were  then  general,  respecting  any  matter,  as, 
for  example,  his  ascribing  the  "Shepherds,"  an 
apocalyptic  book  of  edification,  to  Hennas  the 
brother  of  Pius  the  Roman  bishop,  his  chronolo- 
gical statements  must  still  be  conceded  not  to  have 
lost  any  validity. 

Note  20,  p.  38.  —  See  Iren.  adv.haeres.  iii.  11 :  8. 

Note  21,  p.  39.  —  See  Iren.  adv.  haer.  iii.  3:4; 
and  particularly  his  letter  to  Florinus  in  Euseb. 
Hist.  Ecch  V.  20  (Iren.  opp.  ed.  Stieren  i.  822). 

Note  22.  p.  40.  —  In  the  Latin  translation  the 
passage  runs :  "  Yidi  enim  te,  quum  adhuc  puer 
(jtaU)  essem,  in  inferiore  Asia  apud  Polycarpum 
quum  in  imperatoria  aula  splendide  ageres  et  illi 
{miQ^  avto))  te  probare  conareris.  Nam  ea  quas 
tunc  gesta  sunt  mehus  memoria  teneo,  quam  qusB 
nuper  acciderunt  (quippe  quae  pueri  discimus, 
simul  cum  animo  ipso  coalescurit  eiqiie  penitus 
inhaerent)  adeo  ut  et  locum  dicere  possim  in  quo 
sedens  beatus  Polycarpus  disserebat,  processus  quo- 
que  eius  et  ingressus  vitaeque  modum  et  corjDoris 
epeciem,  sermones  denique  quos  ad  multitudinem 


NOTES.  229 

habebat ;  et  familiarcm  consuctuclinem  qucc  illi 
cum  lolianne  ac  reliquis  qui  dominurn  viclerant  in- 
tercessit,  ut  narrabat,  et  qualiter  dicta  eorum  com- 
memorabat:  quaeque  de  domino  ex  ipsis  audiverat 
de  miraculis  illius  etiam  ac  de  doctrina,  qua?  ab  iis 
qui  verbum  vitoe  ipsi  conspexeraut  accepcrat  Poly- 
carpus,  qualiter  referebat,  cuncta  Scripturis  con- 
soiia."  The  attempt  to  make  these  closing  words 
apply  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  not  to  the  Gos- 
pels, is  a  most  impotent  attempt  to  take  away  all 
point  whatever  from  what  Irenaeus  is  saying. 

!N"oTE  23,  p.  43. — See  adv.  Marcion,  iv.  2.  Con- 
stituimus  inprimis  evangelicum  instrumentum  apos- 
tolos  auctores  habere,  quibus  hoc  munus  evan- 
gelii  promulgandi  ab  ipso  domino  sit  compositum ; 
si  et  apostolicos,  non  tnmen  solos  sed  cum  apostolis 
et  post  apostolos.  Denique  nobis  fidem  ex  apos- 
tolis lohannes  et  Matthaeus  insinuant,  ex  apostol- 
icis  Lucas  et  Marcus  instaurant. 

Note  24,  p.  43.  —  See  adv.  Marcion,  iv.  5.  In 
summa  si  constat  id  verius  quod  prius,  id  prius 
quod  et  ab  initio,  ab  initio  quod  ab  apostolis,  pariter 
utique  constabit  id  esse  ab  apostolis  traditum  quod 
apud  ecclesias  apostolorum  fuerit  sacrosanctum. 

Note  25,  p.  45. —  See  the  document  already  re- 
ferred to :  Eadem  auctoritas  ecclesiarura  ceteris 
quoque  patrocinabitur  evangeliis,  quaB  proiude  per 


230      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

illas  et  secundum  illas  habemns,  Johannis  dico 
[before  this  he  says,  habemus  et  Johanni  alumnas 
ecclesias]  et  Matthaei ;  licet  et  Marcus  quod  edidit 
Petri  affirmetur,  cuius  interpres  Marcus.  Nam 
et  Lucse  digestum  Paulo  adscribere  solent ;  capit 
magistrorum  videri  quae  discij^uli  promulgarint. 

N'oTE  26,  p.  46.  —  Theophilus  was  appointed 
bishop  of  Antioch,  according  to  the  statement  ot 
Eusebius  (Hist.  Eccles.  iv.  19  and  20),  about  the 
eighth  year  of  Marcus  Aurelius's  reign,  i.  e.,  about 
168,  at  the  same  time  that  Soter  was  bishop  of 
Rome.  The  third  book  of  his  able  Apology  to 
Autolycus  he  wrote,  according  to  his  own  state- 
ment, in  the  year  181 ;  the  first  two  books  in  the 
year  180.  It  is  extremely  probable  that  the  com- 
pilation from  the  Gospels  was  intended  to  serve  in 
helping  him  discharge  his  official  duties,  —  at  the 
outset,  at  least,  of  his  term  of  service. 

Tatian  himself  tells  us  (Orat.  ad  Grsec.  19)  that 
when  in  Rome  together  with  Justin  he  shared  the 
persecution  experienced  by  the  cynic  philosopher 
Crescens.  After  Justin  had  fallen  as  a  martji*,  Ta- 
tian left  Rome;  in  Syria,  where  he  lived  subse- 
quently, he  embraced  the  Gnostic  heresies ;  at  the 
time  when  Trenseus  was  preparing  his  work  aimed 
against  this  school,  i.  e.  about  177,  Tatian  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  living.  Comp.  Iren.  adv.  haer. 
1 :  28.  Tatian  can  not  have  written  his  celebrated 
apologetic  work,  Addresses  to  the  Heathen,  before 


NOTES.  231 

his  teacher's  death  (166),  but  he  may  have  done  so 
soon  after.  In  all  probability,  however,  he  had 
prepared  the  Diatessaron  still  earlier. 

^N'oTE  27,  p.  46.  —  See  epist.  151  ad  Algasiam 
qua)st.  5.  Theophilus  .  .  .  qui  quatuor  evangelist- 
arum  in  unum  opus  dicta  compingens  ingenii  sui 
nobis  monimenta  reliquit,  haec  super  hac  parabola 
[the  one  respecting  the  Unjust  Steward]  in  suis 
commentariis  locutus  est. 

Note  28,  p.  47.  —  See  Euseb.  Histor.  Eccles.  iv. 
29. 

Note  29,  p.  47.  —  See  Theodoret.  hserei.  fab.  i. 
20. 

Note  30,  p.  47.  —  Jerome,  in  the  passage  already 
cited,  as  well  as  elsewhere  (in  his  Catalogus  de  Vi- 
ris  Illustribus),  alludes  to  Theoj^hilus  as  the  author 
of  a  commentary  on  the  Gospel  (a  term  applied, 
according  to  the  usage  of  that  time,  to  the  four 
Gospels  co-ordinated  into  a  single  narrative),  and 
even  makes  use  of  it  in  explaining  the  parable  of 
the  Unjust  Steward  ;  it  is  very  probable,  therefore, 
that  this  commentary  was  bound  up  with  the  Gos- 
pels. 

Note  31,  p.  52.  —  Hegesippus  wrote  a  history 
of  the  church,  coming  down  to  Eleutheros,  bishop 
of  Rome,  who  is  generally  thought  to  have  been 


232  ORIGIN   OF   THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

in  office  from  177  to  193.  Eusebius  has  made 
extensive  use  of  this  work  (iv.  8  and  22)  in  prepar- 
ing his  own  history,  and  gives  its  author  great 
credit  for  the  rehability  of  all  his  statements,  and 
for  his  doctrinal  soundness  (iv.  21).  In  addition 
to  the  fragments  which  Eusebius  has  preserved,  we 
possess  another  statement  respecting  Hegesippus, 
taken  by  Photius  from  Stephanus  Gobarus,  a  mono- 
physite  living  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  century,  and, 
incori^orated  in  his  Bibhotheca,  No.  232,  Bekker's 
edition,  p.  288.  In  the  fragments  of  Stephanus 
Gobarus,  we  read,  in  connection  with  the  quota- 
tion, "  Eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  neither 
have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him," 
that  Hegesippus  declared  that  this  was  a  vain  and 
meaningless  saying,  and  that  all  such  passages  are 
in  contradiction  to  the  sacred  scripture  and  to  the 
words  of  the  Lord,  "  Blessed  are  the  eyes  which 
see  the  things  that  ye  see;  and  the  ears  that  hear  the 
things  that  ye  hear."  From  this  passage  in  Ste- 
phanus Gobarus  it  is  not  clear  against  whom  or 
against  what  false  doctrine  Hegesippus's  animad- 
version was  directed.  It  is  most  probable  that  he 
aimed  chiefly  at  a  docetic  error  respecting  the  per 
son  of  Christ.  As  Paul  quoted  the  words  cited 
above,  from  1  Cor.  ii.  9,  either  from  Isaiah  Ixiv.  3 
and  4,  or,  as  Origen  supposed,  from  an  apocryphal 
book  known  by  the  name  of  EUas,  it  became  the 
belief  of  certain  theologians  that  Hegesippus  in- 


NOTES.  233 

tended  to  reject  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  and  to  con- 
demn the  validity  of  his  doctrine.  Nor  did  they 
hesitate  to  go  further,  and  grant  that,  admitting 
that  the  passage  in  Corinthians  was  a  free  quota- 
tion from  Isaiah,  they  should  have  to  reject  that  as 
well.  They  even  went  so  far  as  to  bring  Euscbius 
under  suspicion,  and  to  hint  that  he  had  willfully 
perverted  ecclesiastical  history. 

Note  32,  p.  52. —  The  apocalyptic,  ethical  work, 
known  as  the  "  Shepherd,"  had  quotations  neither 
from  the  Old  nor  from  the  New  Testament ;  there 
is  no  lack  of  references  in  it,  however. 

Note  33,  p.  53.  —  See,  for  example,  chap.  35  : 
"While  we  put  away  from  us  all  injustice  and 
wickedness,  avarice,  contention,  cunning  and  de- 
ceit, slander  and  calumny,  blasi^hemy,  pride  and 
self-seeking,  ambition  and  vanity :  for  they  who 
do  such  things  are  displeasing  to  God,  and  not 
alone  they  who  do  them,  but  they  that  have  pleas- 
ure in  them  who  do  them."  Comp.  Kom.  i.  29,  et 
seq. 

Note  34,  p.  53.  — In  chap.  46:  "Woe  to  that 
man :  it  were  better  for  him  if  he  had  not  been 
born,  than  that  he  should  offend  one  of  my  chosen 
ones  :  it  were  better  that  a  millstone  were  hanged 
about  his  neck  and  he  were  cast  into  the  sea,  than 
that  he  should  ojQTend  one  of  my  little  ones."    These 


234  ORIGIN  OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

words  are  cited  expressly  on  the  "  saying  of  our 
Lord ; "  they  disclose,  however,  much  more  clearly 
the  very  j^hrase  taken  from  his  lijjs  and  repeated 
in  the  apostle's  tradition,  than  the  use  of  the  sim- 
ilar passages  in  Matt.  xxvi.  24 ;  xviii.  6  ;  and  Luke 
xvii.  2. 

Note  35,  p.  56.  —  "  That  which  is  born  of  the 
flesh  is  flesh,  and  that  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is 
spirit.  .  .  .  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth, 
and  thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not 
tell  whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it  goeth.  So  is 
every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit." 

Note  86,  p.  56.  — "  For  every  one  that  doeth 
evil  hateth  the  light,  neither  cometh  to  the  light, 
lest  his  deeds  should  be  reproved." 

Note  37,  p.  62.  —  So,  for  example,  Niedner's 
History  of  the  Christian  Church,  p.  206 :  "  The 
first,  the  greater,  at  the  time  of  Antoninus  Pius,  in 
138  or  139 ;  the  second,  the  smaller,  under  Marcus 
Aurelius,  soon  after  161."  The  same  statement  is 
made  by  Neander  (Gen.  Hist,  of  the  Christ.  Rel. 
and  Chur.,  3d  ed.  i.  1,  p.  364,  et  sq.)  :  "  Since  in  the 
su])erscription  he  does  not  speak  of  M.  Aurelius  as 
Caesar,  it  is  probable  that  it  was  written  before  his 
promotion  to  the  imperial  dignity,  which  took 
place  in  139."  Thereupon  he  alludes  to  the  "  greater 
difliculty "  which  the   determination  of  the  time 


NOTES.  235 

when  the  shorter  Apology  was  written  cost  him, 
and  states  that  he  could  come  to  no  decision  re- 
specting it. 

Note  38,  p.  62.  —  The  passage  (i.  46)  runs,  "  In 
order  that  it  may  not  be  said  in  senseless  perver- 
sion of  what  I  have  stated  respecting  Christ's  be- 
ing born  under  Quirinus  150  years  ago,  his  teach- 
ing what  may  be  called  his  system  under  Pontius 
Pilate,  and  the  inference  which  might  be  drawn 
that  all  men  born  before  his  time  were  free  from 
guilt,  I  will  meet  this  matter  at  the  very  outset." 
Every  one  can  see  in  these  round  numbers,  aud  in 
this  mode  of  expression,  how  little  the  -writer 
meant  to  assign  a  definite  date  to  the  composition 
of  the  Apology.  Still,  the  year  147  is  the  one 
which,  according  to  our  ordinary  computation,  is 
assigned  as  the  -^date  when  it  was  written.  That 
in  the  Apology  of  Marcion  the  subject  is  alluded 
to  as  one  occupying  the  public  mind,  has  no  vital 
relation  to  the  time  which  we  have  specified,  al- 
though to  the  statement  of  Irenaeus  that  Marcion 
was  in  Rome  with  Cerdo  at  the  time  of  Hyginus 
(generally  set  between  137  and  141),  must  be 
added  that  of  the  Arabic  biographers  of  Mani,  ac- 
cording to  which  Marcion  came  into  notice  in  the 
first  year  of  Antoninus  Pius,  138  :  for  the  year 
139  can  not  be  coupled  with  this  event.  That 
Justin  cites  in  the  Apology  his  work  against  Mar- 
cion ("and  the  Marcionites"  does  not  appear  in 


236  ORIGIX   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

in  the  title),  is  said  without  truth.  For  in  i.  26 
he  aUuclcs  to  his  work  "  Against  all  Heresies,"  not 
to  that  "Against  Marcion;"  the  latter  is  cited  by 
Ii  enfeus,  iv.  G :  2,  after  a  citation  of  the  first-named 
work  of  Jerome  in  the  catalogue.  One  circum- 
stance opposed  to  this  is  not  to  be  overlooked.  If, 
with  the  pushing  back  of  the  first  Apology  to  the 
year  147,  the  connection  of  the  second  and  the 
first  be  insisted  on,  and  the  latter  is  regarded  as  a 
mere  appendix  to  the  former,  the  assigning  of  so 
early  a  date  to  the  former  becomes  the  more  im- 
probable from  the  fact  that  Justin  alludes  in  the 
same  to  the  persecutions  of  Crescens  following  him 
even  to  his  death.  This  seems  to  me  to  give  more 
decisive  evidence  against  the  connection  of  the 
two,  than  the  existing  reference  in  the  second  to 
what  is  said  in  the  first  does/br  that  connection. 

XoTE  39,  J).  62.— rif  the  freedom  be  taken  to 
come  from  this  date  down  to  150,  there  is  an  equal 
right  to  go  back  several  years  before  147. 

Note  40,  p.  63. —  By  way  of  illustration,  we 
may  cite  the  passage  which  is  given  three  times 
in  the  Dialogue  (chaps.  76,  120  and  140),  "They 
shall  come  from  the  east  and  from  the  west,  and 
shall  sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  with 
Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob ;  but  the  children 
of  the  kingdom  shall  be  cast  out  into  outer  dark- 
ness."    This  coincides  literally  with  Matt.  viii.  11 


NOTES.  237 

and  12,  excepting  that  in  the  Litter  we  have  the 
reading  "many  shall  come."  In  like  manner  in 
the  Dialogue  (chap.  107)  we  have,  "It  is  written 
in  the  Memorabilia,  that  your  country  folk  asked 
him  and  said, '  Show  us  a  sign.'  And  he  answered 
them,  'An  evil  and  an  adulterous  generation  seek- 
etli  after  a  sign,  and  there  shall  no  sign  be  given 
them  but  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonas.'"  This 
reply  of  the  Lord  coincides  literally  with  Matt, 
xii.  40,  with  the  mere  use  of  "  them  "  for  "  it." 

!N'oTE  41,  p.  63.  —  Respecting  Luke  xxii.  44, 
it  runs,  for  instance,  that  Justin  alludes  in  the  Dia- 
logue (chap.  103)  to  the  sweat  which  ran  down  in 
great  drops  while  Jesus  was  on  the  mount  of 
Olives,  and,  indeed,  it  is  stated  with  express  refer- 
ence to  the  "Memorabilia  composed  by  his  apos- 
tles and  their  companions."  Twice  (chaps.  76  and 
100)  he  cites  as  a  saying  of  the  Lord :  "  The  Son 
of  man  must  suffer  many  things,  and  be  rejected 
by  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  (chap.  100,  *  by  the 
Pharisees  and  scribes'),  and  be  crucified,  and  on 
the  third  day  rise  again."  This  agrees  more  closely 
with  Mark  viii.  31  and  Luke  ix.  21,  than  ^dth  Mat- 
thew xvi.  21 ;  only  in  Justin  the  reading  is  the 
"Pharisees"  instead  of  the  "elders  and  high  priest" 
(as  in  Matt.,  Mark,  and  Luke),  and  in  like  manner 
"be  crucified"  instead  of  "be  slain." 

Note  42,  p.  63.  —  Among  these  is  Theodoret's 


238      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

Hsevet.  Fab.  ii.  2,  according  to  which  that  which  is 
said  everj^vhere  else  respecting  the  Gospel  of  the 
Hebrews  is  asserted  to  have  been  in  use  among 
the  Nazarasans.  Eusebius  reports  (Hist.  Eccl.  vi. 
12)  the  judgment  of  Serapion,  bishop  of  Antioch, 
regarding  this  matter.  The  latter  found  the 
most  of  it  conformable  to  the  true  faith,  but  de- 
tected here  and  there  something  superadded  even 
in  the  sense  of  the  Docetes,  which  he  ascribed  to 
the  influence  of  that  community  in  Rhossus  in  Cih- 
cia,  where  he  found  the  book  in  use.  Origen,  in 
his  comment  on  Matt.  xiii.  54,  et  sq.,  states  that, 
like  the  work  of  James,  this  reports  the  "  brethren 
of  Jesus"  to  be  children  of  Josej^h  by  a  former 
marriage. 

Note  43,  p.  64.  —  A  few  examples  may  illustrate 
the  character  of  the  argument  between  Justin  and 
the  Clementine  Homilies.  Both  Justin  and  the 
psuedo-Clement  concur  in  this :  "  Let  your  yea  be 
yea  and  your  nay  nay ;  whatever  is  more  than  this 
Cometh  of  evil."  In  Matthew,  however,  it  stands 
thus :  "  But  let  your  communication  be  yea,  yea, 
and  nay,  nay;  for  whatsoever  is  more  than  this 
Cometh  of  evil."  The  first  of  these  forms  coincides, 
h6wever,  almost  literally  with  that  which  ls  found 
in  James  v.  12,  "But  let  [.^^co,  Justin  and  the 
pseudo-Clement  fdrco]  your  yea  be  yea,  and  your 
nay,  nay."  Further,  we  have  in  Justin,  i.  Apol. 
chap.  16,  "  Not  all  who  say  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord, 


xoTES.  239 

shall  come  into  the  kingclom  of  heaven,  but  they 
that  do  the  will  of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven. 
For  he  who  lieareth  me  and  doeth  what  I  say,  he 
heareth-him  that  sent  me."  In  the  Homilies  (8  :  7) 
it  runs,  "  Jesus  said  to  one  who  often  called  him 
Lord  but  did  none  of  his  commandments,  '  Why 
callest  thou  me  Lord,  Lord,  and  doest  not  what  I 
say  ? ' "  Herewith  compare  Matt.  vii.  21,  "  Not  every 
one  that  saith  unto  me  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven;  but  he  that  doeth  the 
will  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  In  like 
manner,  Luke  x.  16,  "  He  that  heareth  you  heareth 
me ;  and  he  that  despiseth  you  despiseth  me ;  and 
he  that  despiseth  me  desj^iseth  him  that  sent  me." 
For  the  last  clause  the  Cambridge  Codex,  with 
three  old  Latin  manuscripts,  offers  the  reading, 
"But  he  who  heareth  me,  heareth  him  who  sent 
me."  Another  well  accredited  reading  of  the 
greatest  antiquity  adds  to  the  standard  version  the 
words,  "  And  he  that  heareth  me,  heareth  him  that 
sent  me."  They  take  out,  however,  from  Justin 
(and  the  Homilies)  the  phrase,  "  and  doeth  what  I 
say,"  in  order  to  show  a  reference  to  some  other 
source.  Two  other  examples  which  illustrate  this 
matter  will  be  found  in  the  following  note. 

Note  44,  p.  65.  —  It  is  very  doubtful  whether 
from  the  way  in  which  Justin  cites  Matt.  xi.  27, 
and  especially  in  view  of  the  transposition,  we  are 
right  in  forming  conclusions  as  to  a  source  differ- 


240  OlilGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

ent  from  the  Gospel  of  the  church,  in  spite  of  the 
close  resemblance  between  the  Homilies  and  Jus- 
tin's citation.  The  passage  runs  in  Matthew, 
"  No  one  knoweth  {tTtiyivcoG-Asi,  several  very  ancient 
authorities  yimoAsi,  but  Clemens  of  Alexandria 
often,  Origen  often,  Irenaeus  often,  and  Didymus, 
f/rco,  'knew')  the  Son  but  the  Father;  neither 
knoweth  (as  before)  any  man  the  Father  save  the 
Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  will  reveal 
him "  (but  Clemens  of  Alex,  often,  Origen  often, 
Irenseus  twice,  and  Tertullian,  "  and  to  whom  "  — 
Irenreus  "  and  to  them  to  whom  "  the  Son  may  re- 
veal him).  In  Justin  (Dial.  100,  1st  Apol.  63)  we 
have  "  J^o  one  knoweth  (twice  '  knew ')  the  Father 
save  the  Son,  nor  the  Son  save  the  Father,  and 
those  to  whom  the  Son  shall  reveal  him."  In  the 
Homilies  xvii.  4,  xviii.  4  and  13,  "No  one  knows 
the  Father  save  the  Son,  as  also  no  one  knoweth 
the  Son  (oidsv.,  xviii.  3,  'nor  knoweth  any  one  the 
Son)  save  the  Father  and  they  to  whom  the  Son 
will  reveal  him.'  Epiphaiiius  has  this  transposi- 
tion (in  the  fourth  century)  seven  times  in  eleven 
citations,  and  twice  does  it  occur  even  in  Irenaeus, 
who  in  a  third  place  still  has  a  reading  which  is 
peculiar  to  the  Gnostics.  We  may  notice  the 
other  details  of  this  verse,  in  which  very  early 
changes  of  the  text  are  unmistakable,  without  hav- 
ing to  say,  This  is  the  canonical,  this  the  hereti- 
cal text.  Compare  in  tliis  passage  my  Greek  Tes- 
tament, eighth  edition,  first  part. 


NOTES.  241 

So  in  Matt.  XXV.  41 :  "Depart  (7tonev£ax>E)  from 
me,  ye  accursed,  into  everlasting  fire,  prepared  for 
the  devil  and  his  angels."  Justin  (Dial.  76)  and 
the  pseudo-Clemens  have,  "Depart  (vTrdyere)  into 
outer  darkness  which  the  Father  has  prepared  for 
the  devil  (pseudo-Clemens 'Satan')  and  his  angels." 
Here  not  only  has  the  Sinaitic  Codex  the  same 
expression  vTtdym,  but  the  Cambridge,  which  is 
allied  to  it,  together  with  the  oldest  Latin  wit- 
nesses, and  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian  as  well,  have 
also,  "which  my  Father  has  prepared  for  the  devil 
and  his  angels." 

So,  too,  from  the  passage  in  the  Homilies  xviii. 
17,  "  Enter  through  the  strait  and  nan-ow  wa}^, 
through  which  you  will  pass  into  life,"  there  has 
been  an  attempt  to  draw  an  inference  in  favor  of 
an  extra-canonical  source ;  but  several  of  the  old- 
est witnesses  to  the  text,  among  them  the  Sinaitic 
Codex,  lead  to  the  supposition  that  Matt.  vii.  13 
and  14  was  read  at  the  most  remote  period  as  fol- 
lows :  "  for  broad  and  wida  is  the  way,"  "  for  strait 
and  narrow  is  the  way,"  instead  of  "for  wide  is 
the  gate  and  broad  is  the  way,"  "  for  strait  is  the 
gate  and  naiTow  is  the  way." 

Note  45,  p.  68. — ^^  Throughout  the  whole  Gos- 
pel of  John  this  exclusively  Johannean  designation 
docs  not  appear  again;  it  is  found  only  in  the 
Apocalypse  xix.  13,  and  as  the  "Word  of  life"  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Epistle  of  John.  Is  it  to  be 
16 


242  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

expected  that  Justin,  if  he  did  indeed  di'aw  from 
John,  would  use  tliis  term  exchisively  or  with 
marked  signs  of  preference  ? 

Note  46,  j).  68.  —  Comp.  Yolkmar,  Urspruug 
unserer  Evangelien,  p.  95:  "Justin  contains  the 
root  of  that  which  is  cited  in  the  Gospel  of  John, 
the  beholder  of  the  Lamb  (Rev.  v.  12;  i.  5),  or 
rather,  Justin  himself  appeal's  as  one  of  the  sources 
in  favor  of  the  later  transformations  of  this  latest 
Gospel."  "Much  more  clearly  does  the  most  exact 
trial  reveal  this :  that  the  one  who  tells  of  the  Logos 
follows  him  who  teaches  regarding  the  Logos,  the 
post-John  follows  the  martyr  substantially  in  all 
things ;  and  it  is  beyond  all  doubt  that  Justin  at 
least  never  saw  this  new  Gospel.  So  far  as  the 
formula  is  concerned,  it  is  not  only  wholly  possible, 
but  even  probable,  yes,  the  one  thing  probable,  that 
the  one  who  tells  of  the  Logos  was  not  only  really 
but  was  also  recorded  to  have  been  in  the  school 
of  Justin,  the  teacher  of  the  Logos." 

Note  47,  p.  69.  —  The  word  Ttr^oog  has  defini- 
tively  and  preferably  the  signification  "blind,"  as  the 
explanations  in  Hesychius  and  Suidas  show ;  so  too 
the  whole  passage,  belonging  here,  Constitut.  v.  7 : 
17,  where  the  blind  man  of  John's  Gospel  as  well 
as  of  Justin  is  called  o  Iz  yevarJ'jg  TtijQog. 

Note  48,  p.  G9.  —  Li  both  passages  Justin  has 


•  NOTES.  243 

the  literal  expression  of  John  ix.  1,  tx  yevntjg^  which 
is  almost  never  elsewhere  used  in  reference  to 
miraculous  accounts  of  the  Gospels.  Justin,  too,  in 
his  Apology,  puts  it  in  immediate  connection  with 
the  bUnd,  after  naming  the  lame  and  the  palsied. 
The  same  seems  to  be  true,  too,  of  the  passage  in 
the  Dialogue,  although  the  expression  is  capable 
ol  being  connected  with  the  deaf  and  the  lame. 

Note  49,  p.  69.  —  The  emphatic  expression  of 
John  and  Justin,  Ia  yever^^g,  does  not  appear  here, 
but  tysvvti\)')]v. 

Note  50,  p.  70.  —  That  the  translation  of  John 
found  a  place  in  some  of  our  manuscripts  of  the 
Septuagint,  is  no  less  than  an  evidence  in  favor 
of  a  primitive  translation  followed  by  Justin  and 
John,  and  at  variance  mth  the  text  of  the  Seventy. 
Naturally  Tertullian  (de  resurr.  earn.  26)  as  well  as 
Theodqtus  (exceq^t.  62)  follow  John's  Gospel; 
whereas  another  passage  of  Tertullian  (de  earn. 
Christ.  24,  also  adv.  Marc.  3,  7,  and  adv.  lud.  14, 
both  as  far  as  "  tribus  ad  tribum  ")  attaches  itself 
rather  to  the  Apocalypse  i.  7.  The  seventh  chap- 
ter of  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  must  also  be  brought 
into  connection  with  the  same  passages  of  John. 

Note  51,  p.  70.  —  The  form  retained  in  our 
translation,  ''be  born  again,"  which  is  in  accordan(?e 
with  the  Vulgate,  is  literally  justified  by,  and  is 


241  onraix  of  the  four  gospels. 

significantly  recommended  in  the  answer  of  Nico- 
demns.  So,  too,  the  explanation  of  the  new  birth 
made  by  Jesus,  in  the  fifth  verse,  to  Nicodemus,  is 
much  more  closely  allied  with  being  "  born  again  " 
than  with  being  born  "from  above."  Many  com- 
mentators, however,  ancient  as  well  as  modern, 
prefer  the  expression  "  from  above."  If,  however, 
this  reading  is  to  be  taken  in  the  sense  as  if  the 
expression  of  Justin  did  not  conform  to  that  of 
John,  and  therefore  discloses  another  origin  than 
John's  Gospel,  it  is  singularly  thought  possible  to 
decide  how  Justin  was  obliged  to  understand 
John's  expression.     But  see  the  next  note. 

Note  52,  p.  71. — In  order  to  deny  the  connec- 
tion of  the  Justini-an  quotation  with  the  passage 
from  John,  it  has  been  asserted  that  the  expression 
used  in  the  first,  the  "kingdom  of  heaven"  {j^aai- 
leia  rav  ovQCivwv)^  is  not  Johannean.  But  the  same 
expression  is  so  strongly  authenticated  in  the  fol- 
lowing fifth  verse,  by  the  Sinaitic  Codex,  by  the 
Docetes  in  Hippolytus,  by  a  newly  discovered  frag- 
ment of  IrenaBus  (in  Harvey,  p.  498),  by  the  apos- 
tolical constitutions,  and  by  Origen  (in  the  Inter- 
pres),  that  it  must  be  regarded  as  in  the  original. 
(Accepted  in  1864  in  my  synopsis.)  I  must  remark 
in  addition,  that  the  fragment  of  Irenaeus  has  dva- 
yEvvi^{^ll  (born  again)  instead  of  John's  yEvvri&rj :  it 
shows  iiow  much  it  lay  at  heart  with  Justin  and  oth* 


NOTES.  245 

ers  to  give  the  idea  of  John's  yevv}{n7j  av(o{>Ev  (bora 
anew)  by  umysrn;Oi'^Ta  (bom  again).* 

Note  53,  p.  71.  —  For  this  yiew  is  claimed  the 
similarity,  also,  which  the  quotation  in  the  pseudo- 
Clementines,  xi.  26,  has  with  that  of  Justin  :  "for 
thus  says  the  prophet,  *  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  ex- 
cept ye  be  bom  again  with  living  water  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  ye  can  not  come  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.' "  The  significance  of  this  sim- 
ilarity is  to  be  inferred  from  what  has  been  ex- 
pressed in  the  previous  notes.  That  the  earlier 
expressly  denied  dependence  on  John's  Gospel  is 
to  be  discerned  in  the  newly  discovered  close  of  his 
Homilies,  may  be  seen  further  on.  Compare  what 
is  said  under  the  head  "  Naasenians." 

Note  54,  p.  72.  —  John  uses  the  expression 
"kingdom  of  God"  only  in  iii.  3  ;  it  is  often  met,  on 
the  contrary,  in  Luke,  both  in  the  Gospel  and  the 
Acts;  often,  too,  in  Mark,  and  several  times  in 
Matthew. 

Note  55,  p.  73.  — See  Dialogue,  chap.  103.  lu 
the  Latin  version  the  passage  runs,  "in  commen- 
tariis  quos  ab  eius  apostolis  et  eorum  sectatoribus 
Bcriptos  dico." 

Note  56,  p.  76. — In  the  same  sense  the  passage 
in  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Philadel- 


246      ORIGIN    OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

phians  appears  to  have  authoritative  weight:  "while 
I  curse  myself  before  the  Gospel,  as  the  body  of 
Jesus,  and  before  the  apostles  as  the  elders  of  the 
church.  But  the  prophets  we  will  love  because 
they  have  prophesied  of  the  Gospel  and  have  hoped 
and  waited  for  the  Lord."  By  the  expression  the 
"  Gospel  as  the  body  of  Jesus,"  in  its  connection 
with  the  apostles  and  proj^hets,  is  probably  to  be 
meant  the  written  Gospel  in  the  hands  of  the 
church. 

!NoTE  57,15.79. — See  my  [N'otitia  editionis  cod.  Sin. 
cum  catalogo  codicum,  etc.,  p.  58  et  sq.  The  MS.  of 
the  Gospels  indicated  under  No.  2,  in  my  collection 
of  Greek  MSS.  dating  probably  from  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, contains  in  three  passages  of  Matthew  the 
parallels  of  the  Hebrews'  Gospel  (called  zh  iovuar/6v). 
At  Matt.  iv.  5,  we  have  "  to  Jerusalem,"  not  "  into 
the  holy  city."  At  xvi.  17  is  the  reading  vis  Icjdvvov 
(son  of  John),  not  ^uQicovd  (son  of  Jona).  At  xviii. 
22,  in  the  Hebrews'  Gospel,  after  the  words  "seventy 
times  seven,"  the  addition,  "for  in  the  prophets, 
too,  after  that  they  were  anointed  with  the  Holy 
Ghost,  was  sin  found"  (literally  the  "word  of 
sin,'!  Xoyog  dfiaQTiag) .  This  remarkable  passage  was 
given  by  Jerome  in  the  Latin  form.  At  xxvi.  74, 
it  is  asserted  that  instead  of  the  words  "  then  he 
began  to  curse  and  to  swear,"  the  Hebrews'  Gos- 
pel reads,  "  and  he  denied  and  swore  and  cursed." 
Such  a  parallelizing  of  special  passages  as  we  find 


NOTES.  247 

here  -would  be  irrfitionnl,  yes,  impossible,  had  the 
Hebrews'  Gospel  not  the  same  character,  the  same 
tone,  and  in  the  main  the  same  language,  with  that 
of  Matthew.  And  if  some  of  the  patristic  quotations 
from  it  do  not  seem  to  give  special  support  to  this 
view,  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  these  citations 
must  be  made  where  there  are  deviations  fi'om 
Matthew's  reading,  and  that  they  are  represented 
to  us  as  such. 

!N"oTE  58,  p.  81.  —  See  adv.  haer.  iii.  11 :  7. 
"  Tanta  est  autem  circa  evangelia  hsec  firmitas,  ut 
et  ipsi  hseretici  testimonium  reddant  eis,  et  ex  ipsis 
egrediens  unusquisque  eorum  conetur  suam  con- 
firmare  doctrinam." 

Note  59,  p.  83.  —  Irenseus  iii.  4 :  3  (and  follow- 
ing him  Eusebius  iv.  11)  makes  him  come  to 
Rome  at  the  time  of  Hippolytus,  between  137  and 
141. 

Note  60,  p.  84.  — See  adv.  hser.  iii.  11 :  7.  Hi 
atitem  qui  a  Valentino  sunt,  eo  (sc.  evangelio)  quod 
est  secundum  Johannem  plenissime  utentes  ad  os- 
tensionem  conjugation um  suarum,  ex  ipso  detegen- 
tur  nihil  recte  dicentes,  quemadmodum  ostendimus 
in  primo  libro. 

Note  61,  p.  84.  —  See  adv.  haer.  i.  8 :  5.  Adhuc 
autem  Johannem  discipulum  domini  docent  pri- 


248  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

mam  Ogdoadem  et  omnium  generationem  signifi 
casse  ipsis  dictionibus,  etc. 

Note  62,  p.  85.  —  See  Philosophum.  vi.  35.  Liter 
ally  the  i:)assage  runs :  Therefore  all  the  prophets, 
and  the  law  spoken  of  as  Demiurgos,  a  foolish  god, 
sunk  in  folly  and  ignorance  (iXdhjaciv  arto  zov  dr^ii- 
ovQyov  .  .  .  jucooo/  ov8h  eldoTeg).  On  this  account,  ac- 
cording to  Valentine,  the  Saviour  says,  "  All  that 
before  me,"  etc. 

Note  63,  p.  85.  —  Appeal  is  made  especially  to 
i.  8  : 1-4,  and  8:5;  yet  in  the  former  of  these  only 
the  three  first  Gospels  are  referred  to,  in  the  latter 
only  the  last ;  moreover,  they  are  alluded  to  only 
by  Ptolemy,  whose  name  is  given  in  the  Latin 
text  ("  Et  Ptolemaeus  quidem  ita ; "  in  the  Greek 
text  these  words  are  lacking)  at  the  end  of  the  ac- 
count. At  8  :  1-4,  however,  Irenaeus  refers  to  the 
Valentinians,  not  to  Valentine.  Can  it  be  said, 
however,  that  1-4  is  the  master  with  his  pupils, 
and  that  in  the  fifth  section  only  the  '  pupil  is 
meant  ? 

Note  64,  p.  91.  —  Compare,  with  reference  to 
this,  the  Preface. 

Note  65,  p.  91.  —  "Si  autem  non  prolatum  est 
Bed  a  se  generatum  est,  et  simile  est  et  fraternum  et 
eiusdem  honoris  id  quod   est  vacuum  ei  patri,  qui 


NOTES.  249 

prsedictns  est  a  Valentino;  antiquins  antem  et 
multo  ante  exsistens  et  honorificentius  reliquis  aeon- 
ibus  ipsius  PtolemaBi  et  Heracleonis,  et  reliquis  om- 
nibus qui  eaclem  opinantur." 

Note  66,  p.  92.  —  '0  trig  Ovalsvripov  axoltjg  doxi- 
ficoTUTog  is  the  expression  of  Clemens. 

Note  67,  p.  92.  — Top  OuuIevtivov  hyo^evov  elvai 
yvcoQi^iop '  IlQUAlt'cova. 

Note  68,  p.  92. —  Comp.  Orig.  contr.  Cels.  5. 
0  MaQxiatvog  yvcoQipiog  'AntDSjg,  aiQsaecog  rivog  ysvofis- 
vog  narriQ,  and  the  Tert.  de  earn.  Chr.  1.  "Apel- 
les  discipulus  et  postea  desertor  ipsius"  (id  est, 
Marcionis)  ;  Psuedo-Tertull.  de  prgescr.  haeret.  LI. 
"  Apelles  discipulus  Marcionis  qui  .  .  .  postea  .  .  . 
a  Marcione  segregatus  est."  Comp.  also  Hippol. 
Philosoph.  vii.  12. 

Note  69,  p.  92.  —  But  is  the  real  meaning  of 
K8'q8cov  diadrj^erai ' HQa-Ah'ojva^  Cerdo  follows  Herak- 
leon?  Is  it  not  rather,  Cerdo  follows  in  my  work  on 
Herakleon?  If  anyone  should  happen  to  be  pleased 
with  this  burlesque  style  of  exj^osition,  he  will 
scarcely  be  able  to  persuade  others  of  its  excellence. 
Another  discovery  on  the  same  side  deserves  equal 
credit.  Hippolytus  alludes  to  a  contention  be- 
tween the  two  wings  of  the  Yalentinian  school  in 
these  words ;  "  The  adherents  of  the  Italiotic  fac- 


250  ORIGIX   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

tion,  to  wliicli  Herakleon  and  Ptolemy  belong,  say 
tlms ;  the  adherents  of  the  oriental  faction,  to 
which  Axionikus  and  Bardesanes  belong,  thus." 
"  Over  this,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  they,  and  any 
body  else  who  likes  to,  may  quarrel."  From  this 
the  inference  is  to  be  drawn  not  only  that  this 
"they"  relates  specifically  to  the  above-mentioned 
heads  of  factions,  but  the  word  ^rfiEirmaav^  "  may 
quarrel,"  indicates  that  these  persons  were  still 
Uving  and  contending  at  the  time  of  Hippolytus. 
Who  could  doubt  after  applying  this  test  that  Mar- 
cion  and  TertuUian  were  contemporaries,  since  the 
latter  writes,  de  carne  Chr. :  "  On  such  grounds 
hast  thou  probably  ventured  to  put  out  of  the  way 
so  many  original  writings  resjDecting  Christ,  Mar- 
cion,  in  order  to  disprove  his  existence  in  the  flesh. 
On  what  authority  hast  thou  done  this  ?  I  ask.  If 
thou,  art  a  prophet,  then  prophesy ;  if  an  apostle, 
preach  openly ;  if  a  follower  of  the  apostles,  hold 
fast  to  them ;  and  if  thou  art  a  Christian,  believe 
what  is  transmitted  to  us.  But  if  thou  art  none 
of  these,  I  might  rightly  say,  then  die,  for  thou  art 
already  dead ;  for  thou  canst  not  be  a  Christian  if 
thou  hast  not  the  faith  which  makes  one  such." 

Note  70,  p.  93.  —  See  Euseb.  Hist.  EccL  iv.  7 ; 
q)yiG)v  (Agrippa  Castor)  avrov  eig  ^h  to  evayyshov  rt'a- 
GUQa  TtQog  zoig  a'rAoai  avvxa^ai  ^ipJa.  Even  if  nothing 
more  definite  is  to  be  determined  respecting  the 
book  of  Basihdes,  it  is  a  fact  of  weight  that  Agrip- 


NOTES.  251 

pa  Castor  had  already  made  use  of  the  snme  ex- 
pression, from  which  we  learn  with  certainty  that 
some  centmies  later  he  indicated  the  collective 
character  of  om*  Gospels. 

Note  71,  p.  96.  —  When  the  apostles  were  ask- 
ing whether  it  is  better  not  to  marry,  the  story  is 
that  the  Lord  answered:  "Not  all  can  understand 
this,  for  there  are  eunuchs  who  are  so  from  their 
birth,  others  are  compelled  to  be  so,  and  others 
still  have  made  themselves  eunuchs  for  the  ever- 
lasting kingdom's  sake."  The  last  words  are  sup- 
plemented by  what  is  found  in  Clemens.  In  like 
manner  the  same  expression  is  cited  by  the  Niko- 
laiteg  in  Epiphanius  25  : 6.  Another  extract  found 
in  Clemens  "  from  the  23d  book  of  the  Exegetica 
of  Basilides,"  contains  no  passage  to  be  compared 
with  this,  nor  does  that  in  the  Archelaus-disputa- 
tion. 

Note  72,  p.  96.  —  On  this  account  he  says,  "  Do 
not  throw  your  pearls  before  swine,  nor  give  that 
which  is  holy  to  the  dogs." 

Note  73,  p.  96.  —  That  Jerome  (in  the  pref  to 
Matt,  and  likewise  in  his  translation  of  the  first 
Homily  of  Origen  on  Luke,  according  to  Jerome, 
also,  Ambrosius  on  Luke)  mentions  an  original  Gos- 
pel of  Basilides,  probably  rests  only  upon  the  accept- 
ance of  the  24  books  of  the  Gospel  as  of  a  Gospel 


252  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

in  a  certain  sense  apocryphal ;  we  must  tlierefore 
consider  the  secret  communications  of  Mattliew, 
which  according  to  Hippolytus  were  extolled  by 
Basilides  and  his  followers,  as  that  Gospel  of  Basi- 
iides. 

Note  73,  p.  96.  —  See  vii.  25.  "  As  it  is  written, 
'And  the  creation  itself  groaneth  and  travaileth 
together,  waiting  for  the  manifestation  of  the  chil- 
dren of  God.' "  (Rom.  viii.  22  and  19.)  "  That  is 
the  .  .  .  wisdom  of  which  he  says  the  Scripture 
asserts,  'Not  with  words  which  human  wisdom 
teacheth,  but  which  the  Spirit  teacheth.' "  1  Cor. 
ii.  13.  Reference  is  made  to  the  same  in  Eph.  iii. 
3  and  5,  and  2  Cor.  xii.  4. 

Note  74,  p.  96.  — See  vii.  26.  "That  is  it,  he 
says,  which  is  written:  'The  Holy  Ghost  shall 
come  upon  thee,  .  .  .  and  the  power  of  the  Highest 
shall  overshadow  thee.'"  The  allusion  to  Matthew 
is  in  vii.  22,  and  relates  to  the  account  of  the  star 
seen  by  the  wise  men. 

Note  75,  p.  96.  —  See  vii.  20.  "  Basilides,  there- 
fore, and  Isodorus,  Basihdes'  own  son  and  disciple, 
assert  that  Matthias  transmitted  to  them  cer- 
tain secret  communications  which  he  had  received 
from  the  Saviour  as  a  special  charge.  We  shall 
see  how  openly  Basilides  as  well  as  Isodorus  and 
their  whole  crowd  of  followers  calumniate  not  only 


NOTES.  253 

Matthias  but  the  Saviour  also."  This  is  at  tlie 
commencement  of  his  representation  of  BasiUdes 
and  his  school.  And  just  so  often  as  he  has  occa- 
sion, in  what  follows,  to  mention  BasiUdes,  he  is  to 
be  understood  as  alluded  to  in  the  same  strain  as 
at  the  outset. 

:N"ote  76,  p.  98. —  See  Theodoret.  Qurest.  xlix. 
in  libr.  iv.  Regum :  "  On  this  account  I  believe  that 
the  Ophites  are  called  Naassenians."  The  only 
mention  of  the  Ophites  in  Hippolytus  is  viii.  20  :  El 
de  xal  nsnaLtivEg  ainsaeig  ovofid^ovrai  Kai'vav,  'Oopixav  // 
Noci'icuifsiv  {Nocf/ircov?)  'mu  ksQ(x)v  roiovrav  ovh  dvayxai- 
ov  ijyrjiiai  rd  vn  avxcov  hyo^isra  y  yivo^eva  txO-80&ai,  etc. 
From  this  there  can  scarcely  any  inference  be 
drawn,  except  that  to  Hippolytus  the  name  of 
Ophites  seemed  quite  secondary  compared  with 
that  of  Naassenians. 

KoTE  77,  p.  99.  —  The  same  division  of  the  sen- 
tence is  followed  by  many  of  our  oldest  textual 
documents,  namely,  the  oldest  patristic  extracts. 

]^OTE  78,  p.  100.  —  We  do  not  add  to  the  above 
all  the  peculiar  Gnostic  explanations  aj^pended  to 
the  passages  in  the  original. 

Note  79,  p.  100.  —  In  connection  Avith  these 
extracts  we  must  call  particular  attention  to  the 
fact  that  they  quite  often  unite  a  free  transposition 


254:  ORIGIN    OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

of  the  text  with  a  strictly  close  repetition  of  the 
words.  They  reveal  in  this  a  striking  similarity  to 
tlie  citations  of  Justin.  The  same  kind  of  quota- 
tions from  Matthew  and  the  other  synoptic  Gospels 
compel  us  to  draw  an  immediate  inference  as  to  an 
extra-canonical  source.  Does  not  the  analogy  with 
these  Gnostic  and  almost  contemporaneous  ex- 
tracts from  John  show  how  little  such  a  hasty  con- 
clusion as  to  the  Justinian  citation  is  justified? 
Or  are  we,  in  the  case  of  the  quotation  given  above 
from  John  vi.  53,  to  draw  a  conclusion  as  to  that 
extra-canonical  source,  because,  in  entire  analogy 
with  Justin's  quotation  from  John  vi.  51,  the  con- 
cluding words,  "  ye  shall  not  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,"  are  given  instead  of  John's  "you  have 
no  life  in  you  "  ? 

Note  80,  p.  102.  —  With  reference  to  this,  se^ 
a  previous  note.  Tertullian  adv.  Marcion,  i.  19, 
writes :  Cum  igitur  sub  Antonino  primus  Marcion 
hunc  deum  induxerit.  .  .  .  The  determination  of 
dates  in  Marcion's  works  is  a  matter  presenting 
the  gravest  difficulties.  Although  the  "invaluit 
sub  Aniceto  "  of  Irenceus  iii.  4:3  is  not  to  be  ap- 
plied to  his  appearance  at  Rome,  yet  there  is  a 
contradiction  still  remaining  involving  a  statement 
of  Clemens  (Strom,  vii.  17),  who  places  Marcion 
before  Basilides  and  Valentine.  As  the  latter 
position  appears  to  be  sustained  by  the  recent 
striking  discovery  of  a  memorandum  of  Philastrius 


NOTES.  255 

(haer.  45,  qui,  i.  e.  Marcion,  dcvictus  atque  fuga- 
tus  a  beato  Jolianne  evangclista),  ...  so  tlie  same 
appears  to  be  corroborated  by  the  recent  exhuming 
of  the  unquestionably  ante-Jerome  prologue  to 
John,  of  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  when 
I  come  to  the  Papias  problem.  Manifestly  we 
have  to  deal  with  a  primitive  tradition  running 
back  to  a  time  antedating  Marcion's  earliest  ac- 
tivity and  his  removal  to  Rome. 

Note  81,  p.  103.  — Sec  Iron.  iii.  2  and  12,  where 
the  assertion  is  made  by  the  heresiarchs  with 
specific  reference  to  Marcion :  Dicentes  se  .  .  .  sin- 
ceram  invenisse  veritatem.  Apostolos  enim  admis- 
cuisse  ea  quaB  sunt  legalia  Salvatoris  verbis,  (iii. 
2:2.)  Et  apostolos  quidem  adhuc  qnas  sunt  Ju- 
daeorum  sentientes  annuntiasse  evangelium,  se  au- 
tem  sinceriores  et  prudentiores  apostolis  esse. 
Unde  et  Marcion  et  qui  ab  eo  sunt  ad  interciden- 
das  conversi  sunt  scripturas,  quasdam  quidem  in 
totum  non  cognoscentes,  secundum  Lucam  autem 
evangelium  et  epistolas  Panli  decurtantes,  hiec 
sola  legitima  esse  dicmit  quc^  ipsi  minoraverunt. 
(iii.  J2  :  12.)  Similar  words  in  Tert.  adv.  Marc.  iv.  3. 
Sedenim  Marcion  nactus  epistolam  Pauli  ad  Galatas, 
etiam  ipsos  apostolos  suggilantis  ut  non  recto  pede 
incedentes  ad  vei-itatem  evangelii,  simul  et  accu- 
santis  pseudapostolos  quosdam  pervertentes  evan- 
gelium Christi,  connititur  ad  destruendum  statum 
eorum  evangeliorum,  qua?  ]>ro])ria  et  sub  apostolo- 


256  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

rum  nomine  edantur  vel  etiam  apostolicorum,  ut 
scilicet  ficlem  qiiam  illis  adimit  suo  conferat. 

Note  82,  p.  104.  —  See  Iren.  iii.  1 : 1  (also  Eu- 
seb.  Hist.  Eccl.  v.  8)  :  Et  Lucas  aiitem,  sectator  Pau- 
li,  quod  ab  illo  prsedicabatur  evangelium  in  libro 
condidit.  Tert.  adv.  Marc.  iv.  5.  N'am  ct  Lucse 
digestum  Paulo  adscribere  solent.  In  like  man- 
ner dig.  in  Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  vi.  25  ;  Eus.  iii.  4  and 
Hier.  de  viris  illustrib.  cap.  7  :  in  all  these  three 
passages  the  assertion  is  distinctly  made  that  it 
was  then  understood  that  Paul  indicated  Luke's 
Gospel  when  he  spoke  of  his  Gospel.  Rom.  ii.  16. 
Here  belongs  also  Ps.-Orig.  Dial,  contr.  Marcionit., 
sect.  i.  (Or.  opp.  ed.  Delarue,  vol.  i.  p.  808),  where,  to 
the  question  of  the  Orthodox  man  who  asks,  "Who 
wrote  the  Gospel  of  which  thou  sayest  that  it  is  the 
only  one  ? "  the  Marcionite  replies,  "  Christ,"  and 
to  the  second  question,  "  Did  the  Lord  himself 
write  'I  was  crucified  and  rose  again  on  the  third 
day '  ?  "  the  answer  is,  "  That  was  added  by  the 
apostle  Paul." 

:N"ote  83,  p.  105.— See  A.  Ritschl  (Proi:  at 
Gottingen)  in  the  Jahrb.  £  deutsch.  Theol.  1866,  2. 
p.  355 :  so  is  he  (i.  e.  Prof.  Tischendorf )  unable 
naturally  to  convince  himself  that  in  a  remote 
province  like  Pontus  there  could  not  be  without  a 
degree  of  personal  fault  a  more  limited  acquaint- 


NOTES.  257' 

ance  witli  Christian  books  than  in  other  provinces 
of  the  church. 

Note  84,  p.  105.  —  Had  the  Gospel  of  John  ap- 
peared in  Gottingen  or  in  some  other  celebrated 
University-city  of  Germany,  I  should  have  been 
more  able  to  take  this  charge  home  to  myself. 

Note  85,  p.l06.  — See  Iren.  i.  27  :2:  Et  super 
ha3C  id,  quod  est  secundum  Lucam  evangelium  cir- 
cumcidens  etc.  III.  12:12:  Unde  et  Marcion  et 
qui  ab  eo  sunt  .  .  .  secundum  Lucam  autem  evan- 
gelium  et  epistolas  Pauli  decurtantes.  Tertull. 
adv.  Marcion,  iv.  2 :  Ex  iis  quos  habemus  Lucam 
videtur  Marcion  elegisse  quem  cagderet.  Porro 
Lucas  non  apostolus  sod  apostolicus.  .  .  Ibid,  iv. 
4:  Quod  ergo  pertinet  ad  evangelium  interim  Lu- 
coB,  quatenus  communio  eius  inter  nos  et  Marcio- 
nem  de  veritate  disceptat,  adeo  antiquius  est  quod 
est  secundum  nos.  .  .  Si  enim  id  evangelium  quod 
LucaG  refcrtur,  penes  nos  (viderimus  an  et  penes 
Marcion  em)  ipsum  est  quod  Marcion  per  antitheses 
suas  arguit,  ut  interpolatum  a  protectoribus  Judais  • 
mi  .  .  .  utique  non  i3otuisset  arguere  nisi  quod  in- 
venerat.     Epiph.  hasr.  xlii.  11. 

Note  86,  p.  108.  —  See  Tertull.  adv.  Marc.  iv. 
2:  Marcion  evangelio  sciUcet  suo  nullum  adscribit 
auctorem.  .  .  . 
17 


258  oniaix  of  the  four  gospels. 

XoTE  87,  p.  108.  —  See%a  previous  note. 

Note  88,  p.  112.  —  See  adv.  Marc.  iv.  5 :  Cur  non 
hffic  quoque  (cetera  evangelia)  Marcion  attigit,  aut 
emendanda  si  adulterata,  aut  agnoscenda  si  inte- 
gra  ?  ISTam  et  competit  ut,  si  qui  evangelium  2:>er- 
A^ertebant,  eorum  magis  curarent  pen^ersionem 
quorum  sciebant  auctoritatem  receptiorem.  Like- 
wise, De  carne  Chr.  2:  Rescindendo  quod  retro 
credidisti,  sicut  et  ipse  connteris  in  quadani  epis- 
tola.  Directly  before  this  we  have,  however.  Tot 
originaha  instrumenta  Christi,  Marcion,  delere  au- 
sus  es. 

Note  89,  p.  113. —  See  De  carne  Chr.  2,  in  the 
previous  note ;  see  also  adv.  Marc.  iv.  4. 

Note  90,  p.  113.  —  See  adv.  Marc.  iv.  4.  Quid 
si  nee  epistolam  agnoverint? 

Note  91,  p.  113.  — See  Ritschl  in  Jahrb.  fiir 
deutshe  Theol.  i.  a.  1.  "The  African  was,  however, 
great  in  his  malicious  perversion  of  the  assertions  <  »f 
his  heretical  opponents,  and  whoever  has  followed 
the  course  of  his  onslaught  upon  Marcion  must 
know  how  much  he  had  to  draw  from  Tertullian's 
expression,  in  order  to  establish  the  historical  fact 
which  he  wanted  to  make  good.  If  Marcion  com- 
plained of  the  depravatio  evangelii  and  gave  him- 
eelf  out  as  the  emendator  evangelii,  he  meant  by 


NOTES.  259 

evangelium  the  regula  fidei,  Christianity  as  a  com- 
mon belief,  which  he  wanted  to  purify  from  the 
Judaic  additions  made  by  the  anti-PauHne  school. 
And  since  Marcion  did  not  defend  the  Gospel  can- 
on which  was  known  to  TertuUian,  the  latter  drew 
the  inference  that  he  was  opposing  the  value  of 
this  collection  on  the  ground  of  being  a  reformer 
of  it. 

Note  92,  p.  114. —  See  adv.  Marc.  iv.  4 :  Emen- 
dator  sane  evangelii  (this  is  consequently  Tertul- 
lian's  own  statement,  from  which  there  is  an  effort 
to  prove  his  misunderstanding  of  the  matter)  a 
Tiberianis  usque  ad  Antoniana  tempera  everti 
Marcion  solus  et  primus  obvenit,  exspectatus  tarn 
diu  a  Christo,  poenitente  iam  quod  apostolos  -prse- 
misisse  properasset  sine  praesidio  Marcionis;  nisi 
quod  humanse  temeritatis,  non  divince  auctoritatis 
negotium  est  hseresis,  quae  sic  semper  emendat 
evangelia  dum  vitiat. 

Note  93,  p.  114.  —  Tov  iih  TtaQdxXrp:ov  Mortavbv 
avxovvreg. 

Note  94,  p.  118. —  Alii  vero  ut  donum  spiritus 
frustrentur,  quod  in  novissimis  temporibus  secun- 
dum placitum  patiis  effusum  est  in  human um  ge- 
nus, illam  speciem  (the  account  of  the  "quadri- 
forme  evangelium"  went  before,  to  whose  four 
"  species  "  there  is  a  subsequent  relerence)  uon  ad- 


260  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

mittunt  qnse  est  secundum  Johannis  evangelium, 
in  qua  paracletum  se  missurum  clominus  promisit ; 
sed  simul  et  evangelium  et  propheticum  repellunt 
sj^iritum.  Infelices  vere  qui  pseudoprophetas  (a 
better  reading  assuredly  than  pseudoprophetae) 
quidem  esse  volunt,  proplieticam  vero  gratiam 
repellunt  al)  ecclesia  j  similia  patientes  his,  qui 
propter  eos  qui  in  hypocrisi  veniunt  etiam  a  fra- 
trum  communicatione  se  abstinent. 

XoTE  95,  p.  118. —  Otherwise  the  Montanists 
and  their  most  decided  followers  must  have  met  in 
their  rejection  of  the  Gospel  of  John.  There  is 
not  only  no  support  for  this  view,  involving"  as  it 
does  the  grossest  contradictions,  but  it  contradicts 
as  well  what  Hippolytus,  Tertullian,  and  Eusebius 
have  recorded  respecting  the  connection  of  the 
Paraclete  with  the  Montanist  prophetic  spirit. 
And  had  the  Montanists  thrown  away  the  Gospel 
of  John  at  the  outset,  how  would  it  be  clear  that 
in  Tertullian,  the  reformer  of  Montanism,  we  find 
(without  the  least  trace  of  a  contrast  to  the  earher 
Montanism)  the  Gospel  of  John  standing  in  the 
closest  connection  with  Montanism  ?  Besides,  all 
which  is  expressed  in'  the  passage  of  Irenceus  ap- 
l^liesjust  as  appositely  to  the  opponents  of  Mon- 
tanism, as  it  is  inapposite  and  incomprehensible 
when  it  is  made  to  refer  to  the  Montanists. 

Note  96,  p.  119.  — Xeander  (Hist,  of  the  Chris- 


NOTES.  261 

tian  Church,  1856,  3d  ed.)  remarks  fn  alhision  to 
the  Irenaeus  passage,  which  he  understands  just  as 
I  do:  "Irenaeus,  from  whom  we  receive  our  first 
knowledge  respecting  this  party  [the  Alogians],  as- 
suredly says  too  much  when  he  states  that  they 
rejected  the  Gospel  of  John  in  consequence  of  the 
passage  relating  to  the  Paraclete.  That  passage 
alone  certainly  could  not  have  led  to  this,  for  they 
only  made  use  of  it,  as  was  the  case  with  others, 
to  limit  it  to  the  apostles,  in  order  to  take  away 
the  support  from  beneath  the  Montanists.  But 
since  they,  if  those  words  of  Christ  were  brought 
against  them  with  a  Montanist  interpretation,  stig- 
matized the  whole  document  which  contained  them 
as  not  genuine,  the  inference  was  a  quick  one  that, 
in  consequence  of  a  kind  of  legerdemain  only  too 
common  in  theological  discussion,  they  had  in 
consequence  of  this  passage  rejected  the  whole 
Gospel." 

Note  97,  p.  119.  —  Adv.  Prax.  13,  he  says  Nos 
paracleti,  non  hominum  discipuli.  Comp.  further 
De  resurrect,  earn.  63  (per  novam  prophetiam  de 
paracleto  inundantem),  and  many  other  passages. 

Note  98,  p.  120.  —  Irenaeus  states  (iii.  3  :  4) 
that  the  story  was  repeated  after  Polycarp  that 
John  once  encountered  Cerinth  while  bathing,  but 
instantly  left  the  bath  with  these  words,  "  Let  us 
get  out ;  the  bath  might  come  to  pieces  with  such 


262  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

an  enemy  to  truth  in  it  as  Cerinth  is."  That  two 
hundred  years  later  Epiphanius  attributed  this 
anecdote  to  "  Ebion  "  has  no  weight  when  set  over 
against  the  authority  of  Irenseus.  For  the  state- 
ment of  EjDiphanius  (hser.  28:  2)  that  Cerinth  once 
had  communication  with  Peter,  and  that  he  was 
one  of  those  who  criticised  his  relations  with  the 
Gentile  centurion  Cornelius,  there  is  no  earlier 
voucher. 

Note  99,  p.  123.  —  According  to  2  :  27,  Celsus 
suffers  his  Jews  to  be  told  that  Christians  changed 
and  corrupted  the  "  Gospel  "•  for  polemic  ends. 

Note  100,  p.  127.  —  Mary,  poor,  Uving  by  the 
work  of  her  own  hands,  is  said  to  have  been  driven 
away  by  her  husband,  a  carpenter,  in  consequence 
of  an  adulterous  connection  with  a  soldier  named 
Panthera ;  and  the  story  is  that  Jesus  hired  him- 
self in  Egjq^t  in  consequence  of  his  poverty,  and 
learned  secret  arts  there. 

Note  101,  p.  127.  — See  Origen  2:13,  where 
the  Jew  of  Celsus  says,  "  I  might  bring  forward 
many  things  which  were  written  of  Jesus,  and 
which  are  strictly  true,  though  differing  from  the 
writings  of  the  disciples ;  yet  I  will  leave  this  on 
one  side." 

Note  102,  p.  128.  —  See  Der  Ursprung  unserer 
Evangehen,  p.  80. 


NOTES.  263 

Note  103,  p.  126.  — El  ^h  olv  om  eyQa\pev. 

Note  104,  p.  129. — El  ds  xd-xetvov  dgl^dfievog 
ovvezelEoe. 

Note  105,  'p.  130.  —  That  there  is  an  allusion 
to  the  Marcionitos  does  not  do  violence  to  this  de- 
termination of  the  date ;  still,  mention  is  made  of 
the  heresy  of  Marcion  as  early  as  the  first  Apology 
of  Justin. 

Note  106,  p.  132.  —  In  1851  appeared  in  the 
Hague  a  prize  essay  written  by  me  in  1849 :  De 
evangelior.  apocryph.  origine  et  usu.  I  hope  to 
publish  a  revised  edition  of  it  for  the  use  of  learned 
readers. 

Note  107,  p.  134.  —  Those  who  care  to  go  fur- 
ther into  this  matter  I  must  beg  to  see  in  the  orig- 
inal Greek  how  the  passage  runs  in  Justin,  in  Luke 
(i.  30  et  sq.),  and  in  the  Protevangel  (see  my  elab- 
orately annotated  Evang.  Apocr.  1853,  p.  21  et  sq. 
Protevang.  chap.  xi.). 

Note  108,  p.  134.  — Justin  has  it:  The  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  shall  come  upon  thee  and  the  power 
of  the  Highest  shall  overshadow  thee ;  therefore 
that  which  shall  be  born  of  thee  is  holy,  the  Son 
of  God.  Luke  says :  The  Holy  Ghost  shall  come 
upon  thee,  and  the  power  of  the  Highest   shall 


264  oniGix  OF  the  four  gospels. 

overshadow  thee;  therefore  also  that  holy  thing 
which  shall  be  born  of  thee  shall  be  called  the  Son 
of  God.  The  pseudo-James  has  it  thus  :  For  the 
power  of  the  Lord  shall  overshadow  thee ;  there- 
fore shall  the  holy  thing  which  is  born  of  thee 
be  called  the  Son  of  the  Highest. 

Note  109,  p.  135.  — In  Justin  it  runs:  IJimiv  ds 
Y.(d  xiiQav  )M.^ov6a  .  .  .  uTtey.Qivaro.  In  the  pseudo- 
James  :  XuQxv  da  /.a^ovaa  Ma(iia^  dmei  TtQog  "'Elujd- 
§et. 

Note  110,  p.  135.  —  See  Hilgenfeld :  Kritische 
Untersuchungen  iiber  die  EvangeUen  Justins,  p. 
159  et  sq. 

Note  111,  p.  136.  —  See  Epiph.  hgeres.  xxvi.  12. 

Note  112,  p.  137.  —  Would  one  accept  a  closer 
relation  between  the  Protevangelium  and  the 
Gnostic  book  of  Mary,  there  would  be  a  certain 
probability  in  giving  the  heretical  Gnostic  j^roduc 
tion  such  a  dependence  upon  the  half-Catholic  book 
of  James  as  is  manifested  in  the  many  instances  of 
extra-ecclesiastical  hterature  depending  upon  that 
of  the  church.  The  hints  given  by  Augustine  in 
the  twenty-third  book  against  Faustus  Avould  also 
have  weight  in  this  regard,  while  those  too  of  the 
Gnostic  work  called  De  generatione  Marias  have 
similar   value.     Mary  was  represented  in  this    as 


* 


NOTES.  265 

Ji  daughter  of  a  priest  Joachim  of  tlie  tribe  of 
Levi. 

Note  113,  p.  137.— See  Orig.  opp.  ecl.Delarue, 
iii.  4G3  (comm.  in  Matt.  torn.  x.  17). 

^N'oTE  114,  p.  138.  — For  a  full  characterization 
of  this  mattbr,  the  passage  from  Hilgenfeld  may 
have  so  much  appositeness  as  to  admit  of  its  being 
quoted.  "It  is  certainly  true  that  the  present 
form  of  the  Protevangel,  while  alluding  to  John ' 
and  his  parents  without  describing  his  birtli  more 
closely,  is  incomplete,  and  indicates  more  than  it 
tells ;  but  since  the  Gnostics  in  their  Hwa  MuQiag 
gave  an  account  of  the  dumbness  which  came  upon 
Zacharias,  the  suspicion  is  not  risked  that  the 
primitive  draft  of  the  Gospel  contained  an  account 
of  those  antecedent  events.  The  suspicion  may 
not  be  ventured ;  it  is  entirely  without  support. 
For  the  story  of  Zacharias's  dumbness  stands  in  the 
Gnostic  production  completely  isolated;  it  has  not 
the  slightest  analogy  either  with  Luke  or  with  the 
Protevangel.  If  the  latter  points  to  something  be- 
yond itself,  it  is  at  any  rate  clear  that  our  canon- 
ical Gospels,  including  that  of  Luke,  stand  in  the 
background.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  close 
connection  established  with  the  Gnostic  primitive 
form  of  the  Protogospel :  "  the  same  is  manifestly 
received  only  in  a  revision,  worked  over  after  the 
canonical  Gospels  mainly,  causing   it   thereby  to 


2G6       ORIGIX   OF    THE    FOUR    GOSPELS. 

lose,  as  it  would  seem,  mnny  of  its  peculiarities." 
But  may  not  then  the  Book  of  James  have  a  like 
close  connection  with  the  canonical  Gospels,  taking 
into  account  the  agreement  with  them  of  its  whole 
nature  and  purport  ?  Further  on,  we  read  :  "  The 
admission  that  Justin  made  use  of  such  an  ancient 
Protevangel  may  be  allowed  if  it  be  held  as  prob- 
able that  such  a23roduction,  bearing  among  the  Gnos- 
tics the  title  Ftwa  Magiag,  contained  a  genealogy  of 
Mary."  After  further  remarks  there  follows :  "  All 
the  more  attractive  therefore  is  another  trace  to 
which  Origen  leads  us.  In  the  passage  where  he 
alludes  to  the  Gospel  of  Peter  and  the  Protogospel 
of  James,  he  speaks  of  them  both  as  bearing  the  same 
testimony.  But  how  would  this  be  if  both  Gospels 
should  prove  to  be  closely  related?  How  if  in 
the  Protogospel  of  James  the  prehminary  history 
of  Peter's  Gospel  —  for  there  can  scarcely  be  a 
doubt  that  there  was  such  a  preliminary  history  — 
were  accepted  ?  Is  not  this  more  than  building  on 
the  sand  ?  " 

!N"oTE  115,  p.  139.  —  The  first  reference  to  Jus- 
tin appears,  as  Hilgenfeld  was  the  first  to  remark, 
in  the  document  addressed  to  the  congregations  at 
Lyons  and  Vienna  about  the  year  177.  Allusion 
is  made  there  (Eus.  Hist.  Eccl.  v.  1 :  3,  et  sq.)  to  the 
martyrdom  of  Zacharias.  Tertullian  in  the  Scor- 
piacum  contr.  Gnosticos,  chap.. 8,  refers  to  the  same 
thing,  only  with  more   definite  and  j^ositive  Ian- 


NOTES.  267 

gu:ige.  Clemens  Alexandr.  alludes  to  the  circum- 
stances connected  with  the  midwives.  Strom,  vii. 
page  889  in  Potter.  Origen  is  the  first  who  men- 
tions the  work  as  the  book  of  James. 

Note  116,  p.  141.  —  We  pass  over  the  story  of 
the  death  of  Zacharias  in  the  Protevangel  to  Matt, 
xxiii.  36.  If  this  can  be  so  understood  as  if  afford- 
ing an  historical  basis  for  the  passage  in  Mat- 
thew, it  would  strengthen  the  proof  of  the  anti- 
quity of  the  Gospels  which  we  derive  from  the  doc- 
ument of  James. 

Note  117,  p.  143.  —  A  third  reference  must  be 
accepted  in  the  thirty-eighth  chapter,  where  he 
in  like*  manner  cites  Is.  Ixv.  2,  and  1.  6 :  "I  gave 
my  back  to  the  smiters  and  exposed  my  cheeks  to 
blows : "  see  also  the  words  already  cited  of  the 
xxii.  Psalm,  "They  cast  lots,"  etc.,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  Psalm  iii.  5,  "I  laid,  me  down  and  slept; 
I  awaked,"  etc.,  and  Ps.  xxii.  8.  He  makes  this  close 
to  the  prophecies:  "and  this  was  all  done  by  the 
Jews  to  Christ,  as  you  can  learn "  (here  we  have 
this  express  declaration)  "  from  the  Acts  compiled 
under  Pontius  Pilate." 

Note  118,  p.  144.  —  Instead  of  u'Axa  we  have 
the  specific  word  v7to^pi^[iara.  The  same  title,  pre- 
pared too  for  the  ofiicial  report  of  Pilate,  appears 
in  the  Praesidial  Acts  relative  to  the  martyrs  Tara- 


268      OniGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

clius,  Probus  and  Andronikiis.  See  my  Erv. 
npocr.  p.  Ixii.  In  the  same  sense  it  is  used  in  a 
homily  inscribed  to  Chrysostom  (Chrys.  opp.  torn. 
V.  p.  942)  and  in  the  Martyrium  Ignatii,  chap.  iii. 
But  with  this  we  must  reconcile  the  expression 
vnoiivrinarvAai  tcpi^iieQldsg,  which  Philo  uses  (de  legat. 
ad  Cajum  25)  in  reference  to  the  reports  which  were 
sent  by  Alexander  to  the  emperor  of  Rome.  The 
oldest  Latin  title,  found  in  Gregory  of  Tours,  is  the 
Gesta  Pilati. 

XoTE  119,  p.  145.  —  The  thirty-eight  year^  and 
the  heahng  on  the  Sabbath  are  taken  from  John's 
narrative,  v.  2;  that  about  the  man  who  was 
carried  by,  from  Matthew  ix. 

N"oTE   120,  p.  146.  — See  Weitzel:    Die  christ-  = 
liche  Passahfeier  der  drei  ersten  Jahrhunderte,  p. 
248  et  sq. 

N"oTE  121,  p.  147.  —  On  scientific  grounds  it  is 
not  to  be  excused  if  one  in  learned  investigations 
follows  in  the  old  rut  and  speaks  of  the  Gospel  of 
Nicodemus.  Compare  my  re-establishing  of  the 
old  title  and  the  investigation  respecting  it  in  the 
Prolegomenon  of  the  Evangelia  apocrypha,  p.  liv. 
et  sq.  It  corresponds  best  with  what  was  said 
above  respecting  the  use  of  the  word  vTtofAvi^fiata, 
if  we  say  the  "  Acts  of  Pilate."  The  Latin  desig- 
nation, Gesta  Pilati,  also  answers  well  to  this. 


NOTES.  2G9 

Note  122,  p.  148.  — Sec  Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  ix. 
5  and  7. 

Note  123,  p.  149. —  Comp.  witli  reference  to 
tliis  my  paper :  Pilati  circa  Christum  indicio  quid 
lucis  afferatur  ex  actis  Pilati.     Lipsiae,  1855. 

Note  124,  p.  149. —  Of  later  writers  Epiphanius 
admits  (haeres.  L.  Quartodec.  i.)  that  appeal  was 
made  to  the  Acts  of  Pilate  in  order  to  establish 
the  time  of  Jesus'  death,  it  being  given  there  as 
the  twenty-fifth  of  March.  He  adds,  however,  that 
he  had  found  copies  where  the  eighteenth  was  as- 
signed as  the  date.  The  first  date  is  found  also  in 
our  texts. 

Notb  125,  p.  150.  —  See  the  two  dvaopOQcii  Tlild- 
rov  in  our  Evv.  apocr.  pp.  413-425. 

Note  12G,  p.  150.  —  It  will  gratify  the  wish  of 
the  reader  if  I  insert  here  a  portion  of  the  text  of 
the  work  itself  We  select  for  this  purpose  the 
whole  of  the  third  chapter,  tinged  as  it  is  with  the 
coloring  of  John  :  "And  full  of  rage  Pilate  came 
forth  from  the  hall  of  judgment  (the  Praetorium) 
and  said  to  them,  '  I  take  the  sun  to  witness  that 
I  find  no  fault  in  this  man.'  But*  the  Jews  an- 
swered and  said  to  the  governor,  'If  this  man 
had  not  been  a  malefactor,  we  should  not  have  de- 
livered him  over  to  you.'     Pilate  answered,  '  Take 


270  OniGTN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

him  away  and  judge  him  after  yom-  law.'  The 
Jews  answered,  ^  It  is  not  permitted  to  us  to  put 
any  one  to  death.'  Pihite  said,  'Did  God  order 
you  not  to  put  any  one  to  death  and  not  me  as 
well?'  Pilate  went  again  into  the  judgment  hall 
and  called  Jesus  to  him  iiiivately,  and  asked  him, 
*  Alt  thou  the  king  of  the  Jews? '  Jesus  answered 
him,  '  Speakest  thou  that  of  thyself,  or  have  others 
told  it  thee?'  Pilate  answered  Jesus,  'Am  I  a 
Jew  ?  Thy  people  and  the  high  priest  have  de- 
livered thee  over  to  me  :  what  hast  thou  done  ? ' 
Jesus  answered,  'My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world;  for  if  my  kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then 
would  my  servants  have  fought  that  I  should  not 
be  delivered  over  to  the  Jews:  but  now  is  my 
kingdom  not  thence.'  Then  spoke  Pilate  unto 
unto  him,  '  Thou  art  a  king,  then.'  Jesus  an- 
swered him,  '  Thou  sayest  that  I  am  a  king.  For 
this  cause  was  I  born  and  am  come  into  the  world, 
that  every  one  who  is  out  of  the  truth  may  hear 
my  voice.'  Pilate  asked,  '  What  is  truth?'  Jesus 
answered,  '  The  truth  is  from  heaven.'  Pilate  asked 
again,  '  Is  there  no  truth  on  the  earth  ? '  Jesus 
answered,  '  Thou  seest  how  those  who  speak  the 
truth  are  brought  to  judgment  of  those  who  have 
power  on  the  earth.' "  At  the  close  of  the  fourth 
chapter  we  iTave :  "But  when  Pilate  saw  the 
throng  of  Jews  around  him  he  perceived  that 
many  of  the  Jews  were  weeping,  and  said,  '  Not 
all  the  people  wish  him  to  die.'     Then  answered 


^'OTES.  271 

the  eldevs,  'We,  the  whole  people,  have  come, 
that  he  might  be  sentenced  to  deatli.'  Pilate  an- 
swers them,  'Wherefore  should  he  die?'  The 
Jews  reply, '  Because  he  said  he  was  God's  son  and 
a  king.' " 

KoTE  127,  p.  151.  —  Compare  respecting  this 
my  Evangelia  Apocrypha  in  the  Prolegg.  i.  p.  xxxix. 
et  sq. 

Note  128,  p.  152.  — See  the  same  work. 

Note  129,  p.  153.— Comp.  Hilgcnfeld:  Kritische 
Untersiichungen  uber  die  Evv.  Justins,  der  Clemen- 
tinischen  Homihen  und  Marcions,  1850  (therefoie 
before  1853),  p.  387  et  sq.  Here  an  effort  is  asaibed 
to  the  fourth  Evangelist  to  subordinate  Peter  to  the 
beloved  disciple,  and  on  this  account  the  fourth 
Evangelist's  independence  of  Peter's  Gospel  is  ad- 
mitted, but  afterwards  every  proof  favoring  the  use 
of  the  Gospel  of  John  is  denied  to  the  connection 
of  the  homilies  with  him.  (Page  346  had  thus  de- 
cided with  respect  to  the  expression,  Hom.  3 :  52, 
"My  sheep  hear  my  voice":  "It  is  a  question 
w^hether  the  Gospel  of  John  or  one  still  older  con- 
tained this  passage.")  "Against  such  a  use,"  it  goes 
on  hterally  to  say,  "stands  the  glaring  difference  in 
the  tendency  of  both  wjiters,  so  that  in  presuppos- 
ing an  acquaintance  with  this  Gospel  one  must  ad- 
mit a  polemic  objective  view.     Let  one  imr.o'ine 


272  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUE    GOSPELS. 

an  attack  made  upon  the  divinity  of  Christ,  and 
satisfy  himself  how  such  an  author  could  dispose  of 
John  i.  1 ;  x.  33,  et  sq. ;  xx.  28.  While,  in  John 
X.  86,  Jesus  declares  himself  substantially  as  the 
Son  of  God,  so  that  his  own  assertion  is  an  expres- 
sion of  his  divinity,  the  author  of  the  HomiUes 
takes  the  same  expression,  16  :  15,  to  be  a  decisive 
statement  of  the  difference  between  Jesus  and  the 
Deity.  The  Lord  never  declared  himself  to  be 
God,  but  the  Son  of  God.  How  was  it  pos- 
sible, after  using  the  fourth  Gospel,  to  expressly 
limit  the  time  of  the  intercourse  of  Jesus  and  the 
disciples  to  a  single  year,  and  not,  as  later  teachers 
have  accepted,  the  time  of  his  public  career  ?  How 
could  he  besides,  while  declaiing  Peter  to  be  the 
first  fruits  and  cherished  disciple  of  Christ,  so 
markedly  leave  out  the  Johannean  portraiture, 
and  among  the  expressions  used  by  Jesus  regard- 
ing the  devil  (xix.  2),  which  he  doubtless  collects  as 
completely  as  was  possible,  how  could  he  omit  such 
an  expression  as  John  viii.  44?  The  result  of  our 
investigation  is  in  a  word  this,  that  even  in  Clem- 
entine's Homilies  the  Gospel  of  Peter,  in  contradis- 
tinction to  Justin  and  some  farther  continuations, 
is  used;  with  him  Matthew,  perhaps  Luke  also, 
but  certainly  not  the  Gospel  of  John." 

Note  130,  p.  154.  — With  the  utmost  prob- 
ability Celsus  made  use  (about  150)  of  the  epistle 
of  Barnabas.     That  he  specifically  speaks  of  the 


xoTES.  273 

apostles  as  Ttovr^oozaroi,  Origen  infers  (contr.  Cels. 
i.  63)  from  the  use  of  the  epistle. 

Note  131,  p.  150. — The  text  however  is  not 
to  be  judged  from  what  is  published,  nor  is  that  of 
Dr.  Hilgenfeld,  who  has  contented  himself  with  un- 
scientifically repeating  it  just  as  it  was  left  in  the 
edition  of  two  hundred  years  ago. 

Note  132,  p.  160.—  See  Beitrage  i.  a.  1.:  "These 
words  do  not  suit  if  they  be  made  with  Orelli  (Se- 
lecta  pp.  eccl.  capita,  etc.)  to  refer  to  the  apocry- 
phal fourth  book  of  Ezra  which  Baraabas  else- 
where cites."  One  would  draw  the  inference  from 
this  which  Volkmar  insists  should  be  deduced 
from  Credner's  words,  quite  in  antagonism  to  what 
Credner  himself  asserts. 

Note  133,  p.  160.— See  Jolkmar:  Index  lectt. 
in  liter,  univ.  Turic.  1864,  page  16.  Scriptum  est 
apud  Esdram  Prophetam  iv.  Esd.  viii.  3  :  "  multi  cre- 
ati,  pauci  autem  salvati."  Hoc  auctor  confudit  cum 
dicto  Christi  apud  Matth.  xix.  30,  (?)  Christiano 
illo  interpretamento  dicti  Esdrani.  Quod  ed.  mea 
Esdrae  Prophetse,  1863,  p.  290,  post  J.  C.  de  Orelli 
et  C.  A.  Crednerum  (how  do  the  words  of  Credner 
himself,  cited  in  the  previous  note,  agree  with  this  ?) 
quorum  meritum  plerisque  in  memoriam  revocan- 
dum  erat,  demonstravit,  omnibus  qui  hucusque  de 
ea  re  ex  ed.  'nea  iudicarunt,  persuasit.  .  .  . 


274      ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

Note  134,  p.  160.—  See  D.  F.  Strauss,  Das  Le 
ben  Jesu,  p.  55. 

Note  135,  p.  160.  —  Volkmar  (Der  UrspruDg 
unserer  Evv.  p.  161)  assigns  the  date  of  this  work 
to  "  97,  harvest  time." 

Note  136,  p.  161. —  The  statement  given  above 
of  the  heathen  scoffer  Celsus  merits  unquestionable 
pre-eminence  over  this  discovery;  for  according 
to  him  the  expression,  "It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to 
go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man 
to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God,"  is  but  another 
form  of  Plato's  "It  is  impossible  that  he  who  is 
extraordinarily  rich  should  be  extraordinarily 
good."  See  Origen  contr.  Cels.  6:16.  As  for 
other  matters,  however,  the  crafty  trickery  of  Volk- 
mar does  not  derive  any  reflected  credit  from  Re- 
nan,  as  it  was  said  to^  do  in  the  earher  editions  of 
this  work ;  it  should  have  the  claim  allowed  it  of 
having  anticipated  Renan,  since  the  latter  work 
appeared  in  1863,  whereas  Volkmar's  preface  to 
"  Esdra  Propheta"  is  dated  October,  1862.  Honor 
to  whom  honor  is  due. 

Note  137,  p.  161.  —  So  Yolkmar  i.  a.  1.  p.  161. 
"  118-119  Alexandrine  epistle  named  after  Barna- 
bas, with  a  knowledge  of  the  Gospel  of  Matt,  as  a 
new  work  with  the  most  ample  use  of  Matthew^  but 


NOTES.  275 

with  the  sayings  of  Christ  taken  only  froni  the  hal- 
lowed Old  Testament." 

Note  138,  p.  162.  — A  later  affix  with  Matt, 
than  with  Barnabas  is  "  to  repentance." 

Note  139,  p.  162.  —  By  this  I  seek  to  render 
literally  tmi  ovv  [isllovGiv  Xtyav. 

Note  140,  p.  163.  —  Not  less  than  in  Barnabas 
does  it  become  clear  in  Justin  that  he  makes  the 
brazen  serpent  of  John's  Gospel  the  type  of  the 
cross.  Even  Justin's  expression,  Dial.  91,  appeared 
to  have  flowed  from  a  recollection  of  John  :  TlQoa- 
(pEvyovoi  zcp  zov  toravQco^u'vov  vlov  avtov  mii\pavxi  eig 
Tov  HOGixov,  for  John  iii.  17,  ov  yuQ  dmaredev  6  {>tog 
zov  vlov  avzov  eig  tov  xoafiov,  is  closely  connected 
with  iii.  14.  Naturally,  with  Barnabas  there  is  the 
same  process  of  divination  applied  that  we  find 
earlier  among  the  Clementines.  So  Yolkmar  i.  a. 
1.  p.  67  :  The  author  "  seems  not  to  depend  at  all 
upon  the  Sap.  Sal.  16:  6,  which  had  already  pre- 
figured the  typical  character  of  the  serpent.  But 
least  of  all  upon  the  Logos  Gospel  (John  iii.  14), 
for  his  special  comparison  of  the  lifting  up  of  the 
serpent  in  the  wilderness  with  the  lifting  up  of 
Christ  (on  the  cross  and  thus  to  the  heaven)  is 
wanting  here  :  and  how  could  one  who  in  this  con- 
nection read  '  in  order  that  every  one  who  should  i 
believe  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  ever- 


276  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

lasting  life '  discard  such  a  saying  as  the  above  ? 
No  one  of  us  (!)  could  do  it."  In  the  same  fashion 
Volkmar  shows  in  his  Append,  to  Credner's  Gesch. 
des  Neutest.  Kanons  (1860,  p.  372)  that  Tertullian 
had  not  been  acquainted  with  the  first  Epistle  of 
Peter,  or,  if  he  could  Aot  deny  to  Tertullian  acquain- 
tance with  the  work  Adv.  Gnosticos,  asserts  that  it 
was  only  subsequently  to  207  that  he  was  familiar 
with  it.  He  writes,  "  What  apt  proofs  it  (the  epis- 
tle) ofiers  to  the  opponent  of  the  Gnosis  de  resuiT. 
earn.  .  .  .  the  Montanist  moralist  even,  de  pudicit 
...  or  de  habitu  mulier.  .  .  .  How  was  he  able 
to  pass  over  Peter  in  the  letter,  when  going 
through  the  entire  hst  of  projDhets  and  apostles  ? 
An  Epistola  Petri  has  no  place  in  his  Instru- 
mentum  Apostolorum,  as  he  draws  it  u^d  in  both 
its  chief  forms."  Pity  that  that  whole  course  of 
acute  reasoning  finds  its  answer  in  the  fact  (as  Dr. 
Aberle  has  already  shown  in  the  Theol.  Quartal- 
schrift,  1864,  1)  that  its  first  propounder  has  over- 
looked Tertullian's  complete  work,  De  oratione, 
where  (Semler,  p.  15,  chap,  xiv.)  express  reference 
is  made  to  the  "  praescriptio  Petri,"  in  1  Pet.  iii. 

Note  141,  p.  166.  —  Irenaeus  says  (haer.  iii.  3:  4 
and  ii.  22 :  5)  that  he  lived  in  Trajan's  day,  98  to 
117.  Eusebius  (in  the  Chronicon)  sets  his  death 
at  the  year  100,  and  Jerome  (de  viris  illustrib.  and 
elsewhere)  68   years   after   the   death   of    Christ 


NOTES.  277 

The  Chronic.  Pasch.  has  72  years  after  the  ascen- 
sion of  Christ. 

Note  142,  p.  169.  —  The  change  of  arrange- 
ment in  several  of  our  oldest  Itala  manuscripts 
(Matthew,  John,  Luke,  Mark)  does  not  rest  on  a 
chronological  basis,  but,  according  to  TertuUian, 
upon  the  connection,  first  of  the  two  men  who 
were  apostles,  then  of  those  who  were  helpers  of 
the  apostles. 

Note  143,  p.  171.  — This  is  in  accord  with  the 
statement  of  Eusebius  iii.  37 :  2,  that  already  at 
Trajan's  time  (98  to  117)  apart  of  the  missionary  ac- 
tivity inspired  by  Christianity  consisted  in  the  dif- 
fusion of  the  written  gospel  narratives  (xaf  r^v  rav 
d^sicop  £vay'/E).i(ov  TtaQadidovai  ygacpijv). 

Note  144,  p.  171. — yloylcov  TiVQtanav  t^tjyr^Gi^. 
Rufin,  following  the  ancient  usage,  translates  l6'/ia 
by  oracula.  It  is  extremely  probable  that  the  book 
of  Papias,  true  to  the  chiliastic  standpoint  of  the  man, 
was  largely  devoted  to  the  prophecies  of  the  Lord. 
Chiistian  usage,  however,  gave  the  word  a  larger 
significance,  so  that  the  sayings  of  the  Lord  and  of 
the  apostles,  although  not  having  the  precise  char- 
acter of  prophecy,  are  yet  called  by  that  name, 
and  the  Holy  Writ  was  designated  as  {^eia  loyia. 
Papias  makes  use  of  the  same  expression  in  con- 
veying a  notion  of  the  contents  of  the  Gospels  of 


278  ORIGIN  OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

Matthew  and  Mark,  where  the  naiTower  concep- 
tion com^eyecl  in  the  word  "  prophecy "  does  not 
do  justice  to  the  meaning. 

XoTE  145,  p.  172.  —  Tag  rtoLQa  rov  kvqiov  rij  Ttiara 
d£do{j.tvag  y>al  an  avztjg  TZaQayivofievag  TTJg  dhj&dag. 

Note  146,  p.  173. —  Tovg  rav  ttqeg^vtsqcov  dvrAQivov 
Xoyovg,  ri  '^vdgt'ag  //  tl  UttQog  eItzsv  ...  d  rs  '^Qioxiwv 
Ttai  6  TtQec^vT.  'Icodi'v.  ot  xov  hvq.  fA.ad^7p;ai  Xeyovaiv. 

N'OTE  147,  p.  174.  —  Tovg  i^v  rmv  ditTt.  loyovg 
TtaQa  zmv  avtoTg  naQri'Aol.ov&yjKOZcov  6^oXoyEi7taQEihj\ptv 
at, ' AQiaxicovog  bs  aal  rov  tcqeo^.  '/co.  avx/yAoov  savrov 
g)r]<Ji  yEvia&ai. 

Note  148,  p.  176.  —  To  understand  who  these 
presbyters  were,  it  is  not  necessary  to  understand 
that  they  were  personally  connected  with  the  im- 
mediate companions  of  the  apostles,  as  Irenseus 
(iv.  27 : 1)  shows :  Quemadmodum  audivi  a  quo- 
dam  presbytero  (later  it  runs:  inquit  ille  senior) 
qui  audierat  ab  his  qui  apostolos  viderant  et  ab  his 
qui  didicerant.  But  Irenseus  (v.  36  :  2)  refers  to 
the  "  presbyters  "  without  any  additional  designa- 
tion. 

Note  149,  p.  176. — As  witness  to  his  existence, 
Bionysius  of  Alexandria  (232,  superintendent  of 
the  Alexandrine   School  of  Catechumens)  quotes 


NOTES.  279 

in  Euseb.  vii.  25  :  6  the  mere  fact  that  there  were 
txro  monuments  at  Ephesus  inscribed  with  the 
name  of  John,  and  Eusebius  busies  himself  (iii.  29) 
more  closely  with  attempting  to  give  more  weight 
to  the  testimony  of  Papias  to  the  existence  of  the 
second  John ;  in  suj^port  of  which  he  brings  for- 
ward, evidently  following  the  lead  of  Dionysius, 
the  existence  of  the  two  Johannean  monuments  at 
Ej^hesus. 

Note  150,  p.  180.  —  In  the  last  passage  we 
have  xa  Xoyia  without  any  further  designation ;  he 
refers  however  to  what  goes  before,  where  we 
have  z^v  HVQcaxmv  Xoyiav. 

Note  151,  p.  185.  —  Eusebius  speaks  of  Papias 
even  at  the  time  of  Trajan. 

Note  152,  p.  187.  —  The  memorandum  in  a 
Latin  Oxford  codex  of  the  fourteenth  century,  re- 
specting the  four  Marys,  on  whose  margin  is  writ- 
ten the  word  Papias,  is  unquestionably  to  be  re- 
ferred to  a  Pajiias  of  the  middle  ages,  if  there  is 
any  meaning  to  be  ascribed  to  marginal  words. 
In  such  excerpts,  particularly  as  they  are  given  in 
the  Catenas  and  similar  works,  the  addition  of  the 
author's  name  is  a  matter  of  the  greatest  untrust- 
worthiness. 

yoTE  153,  p.  189.  — So  e.  g.  Zeller:  "The  si- 


280  ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

lence  of  Papias  will  always  afford  conclusive  evi- 
dence against  the  authenticity  of  the  Gospel  of 
John."  Theol.  Jahrb.  1847,  p.  199.  Hilgenfeld: 
"  Had  Papias  said  the  least  thing  respecting  a  Gos- 
l^el  of  John,  Eusebius  could  not  possibly  have  over- 
looked it,  and  as  he  examined  into  the  works  trans- 
mitted by  John,  he  could  not  have  kept  silence  had 
there  existed  a  written  Gospel  from  his  hand.  Die 
Evangelien,  p.  344.  Strauss :  "  The  silence  of  Pa- 
pias respecting  John  as  the  author  of  this  Gos- 
pel is  the  more  weighty  in  that  he  not  only  ex- 
pressly assures  us  that  he  has  carefully  looked  into 
what  was  left  behind  by  John,  but  that,  as  the 
bishop  of  Asia  Minor  and  an  acquaintance  of  Poly- 
carp,  the  disciple  of  John,  he  would  consequently 
know  something  more  definitely  respecting  the 
apostle,  who  spent  his  later  years  in  E^^hesus." 
Leben  Jesu,  p.  62.  Penan :  "  Papias,  qui  avait  re- 
cueilli  avec  passion  les  recits  oraux  de  cet  Aristion 
et  de  ce  Presbyteros  Joannes,  ne  dit  pas  un  mot 
d'une  Vie  de  Jesus  ecrite  par  Jean.  Si  une  telle 
mention  se  fiit  trouvee  dans  son  ouvrage,  Eusebe, 
qui  releve  chez  lui  tout  ce  qui  sert  a  I'histoire  lit- 
teraire  du  siecle  apostolique,  en  eut  sans  aucun 
doute  fait  la  remarque."  Vie  de  Jesus,  3d  ed.  1863, 
p.  xxiv.  Volkmar :  "  We  may  therefore  certainly 
presuppose  that  had  Eusebius  found  a  trace  of  the 
use  of  the  anti-chiliastic  Gospel  of  Papias  he  would 
all  the  more  eagerly  have  brought  it  out; "  and  this 
opinion  is  preceded  by  the  remark  that  "Papiaa 


NOTES.  281 

edited  his  collection  and  interpretation  of  the 
Lord's  prophecies  about  the  year  167  of  our  era." 
Ursprung  uns.  Evv.  p.  59. 

Note  154,  p.  191. — 'OTZolaig  -Av/iQr^vxca  rav  dvri- 
Xeyofi^'vcov,  riva  re  TteQi  rwv  tvdiad^/^xcov  y.al  oiioloyovui- 
rcov  yQaqjcov  xat.  oca  tceqi  rav  pj  rotovrmv  avroTg  EiQr^ai, 

Note  155,  p.  192.  —  That  1  John  and  1  Peter  can 
not  be  taken  out  of  this  category  Eusebius  himself 
declares,  y\.  14,  when  he  speaks  of  Clement.  (See 
text  immediately  following.)  From  the  represen- 
tation of  Cosmas  Indicopleustes  in  the  seventh 
book  of  his  Topograj^hia  Christiana  we  learn  in 
like  manner  that  the  authenticity  of  all  the  catho- 
lic epistles  was  contended  against. 

Note  156,  p.  196.  —  The  statement  of  Andrew 
in  the  sixth  book  that  Papias  bore  witness  to  the 
trustworthiness  (to  dtiomorov)  of  the  Apocalypse 
neither  coincides  with  the  assertion  that  Eusebius 
o\  erlooked  the  testimony  borne  to  the  Johannean 
Apocalypse  by  Papias,  nor,  still  less,  with  the  sus- 
picion uttered  by  Volkmar  (p.  59)  that  Eusebius 
passed  over  this  evidence  "  on  account  of  his  par- 
tisan feeling  against  the  Apocalypse."  It  is  de- 
cisive against  this  suspicion  that  Eusebius  has  men- 
tioned Justin  and  Theophilus  as  credible  witnesses 
for  the  Apocalypse. 


282      ORIGIN   OF   THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

Note  157,  p.  197.  —  Hilgenfeld  sought  to  take 
away  the  force  of  this  proof,  and  wrote  in  his  jour- 
nal, 1865,  pt.  3,  p.  335 :  "  Manifestly  it  is  quite  a 
different  thing  if  Eusebius  does  not  hold,  in  regard 
to  the  epistle  of  Polycarp  to  the  Philippians,  the 
testimony  in  behalf  of  the  epistle  of  Paul  to  this 
community,  an  epistle  which  is  unquestionably 
Pauline  in  its  origin ;  and  merely  remarks,  though 
expressly,  the  use  of  the  first  epistle  of  Peter,  which, 
although  a  subject  of  dispute,  unquestionably  be- 
longed to  the  much  contested  catholic  epistles." 
In  more  prudent  fashion,  however,  Hilgenfeld  men- 
tions to  his  readers  the  epistle  to  the  Philippians 
merely,  to  whom  Polycarp  himself  writes,  and  does 
not  mention  that  the  extracts  are  taken  from  many 
other  Pauline  letters. 

Note  158,  p.  195.  — As  lately  as  1865,  Hilgen- 
feld wrote :  "  How  can  the  inference  be  drawn 
otherwise  than  that  Eusebius  searched  carefully  in 
Papias  also  for  all  evidences  of  New  Testament 
writings,  and  failed  to  communicate  anything  re- 
specting the  canonical  fourfoldness  of  the  Gospels, 
and  especially  respecting  the  Gospel  of  John,  only 
because  he  found  no  evidence  ?  "  "  Who  does  not 
see  that  the  fourfoldness  of  the  canonical  gospels 
had  no  existence  at  the  time  of  Papias  ?  " 

Note  159,  p.  198.  —  See  Volkmar  i.  a.  1.  p.  61 : 
"  It  is  an  entire  distortion  of  the  case  for  Tischen- 


NOTES.  283 

dorf  to  try  to  trouble  rae  with  the  '  absurdity '  of  the 
notion  that  Papias  knew  nothing  of  Luke  as  well :  he 
may  just  as  well  have  been  acquainted  with  Luke's 
Gospel  as  with  John's,  but  may  have  looked  down 
upon  both  as  too  free,  Paul-like,  anti-Judaic-Chris- 
tian and  anti-chiliastic."  "  Although  he  does  not  de- 
fend himself  exactly  so  in  respect  to  the  Gospel  of 
Luke,  the  reason  is  that  it  was  not  enough  held  in 
common  regard  as  Luco-Pauline,  and  he  did  not  need 
his  millenary  traditions  to  defend  himself  against 
such  a  noji-authority.  What  follows,  therefore,  from 
this  nearer  examination  of  the  Papias  contexts  in  re- 
lation to  the  Gospel  of  the  Spirit's  Parusia  ?  Either 
he  really  did  not  become  acquainted  with  it  in 
his  own  Hierapolis,  or  he  did  not  discover  it  with 
the  superscription  'according  to  John,'  and  cer- 
tainly not  having  canonical  authority  to  be  dis- 
owned by  his  silence.  His  testimony  remains  there- 
fore unchanged ;  it  must  be  taken  without  evasion. 
Papias's  silence  res^Decting  Luke  and  John  does  not 
bear  direct  witness  indeed  for  the  non-existence  of 
their  Gospels,  but  for  their  non-apostolical  authori- 
ty ;  or  rather  that  both  Gospels  were  without  apos- 
tolical authority  with  the  larger  number  of  contem- 
poraries for  whom  Papias  gathered  and  expounded 
his  chiliastic  traditions." 

Note  160,  p.  199.  —  During  my  recent  visit  to 
Kome  (March,  1866),  Cardinal  Pitra,  the  learned 
Benedictine,  called   my   attention   to  this  manu- 


284      ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

script ;  yet  Cardinal  Jos.  Mar.  Thomasius  had  al- 
ready given  place  to  the  prologue  accompanying 
it  in  his  collections  (0pp.  omnia,  torn.  i.  Rome, 
1747,  p.  344),  where  Dr.  Aberle  of  Tubingen  had 
noticed  it,  and  learnedly  discussed  it  in  the  first 
number  of  his  Quarterly,  1864,  j^p.  1-47. 

Note  161,  p.  200.  — It  is  further  stated:  Dis- 
scripsit  vero  evangelium  dictante  lohanne  recte. 
That  the  writer  of  this  prologue  wanted  that  this 
should  be  understood  of  John,  the  prologue  pre- 
fixed to  the  Greek  Catena  text  to  John,  and  edited 
by  Corderius,  proves,  which  runs  thus :  vTtayoQevae 
(sic)  TO  svayy.  rep  savrov  fiadrirfj  Uama  ev^Koto)  rep  'Je- 
QaTtolirri.  It  is  clear  that  this  traditional  statement  is 
not  to  be  reconciled  with  Eusebius.  Directly  sub- 
sequently in  the  prologue  it  runs :  Verum  Marcion 
hereticus  cum  ab  eo  (codex  abe)  fuisset  improbatus, 
eo  quod  contraria  sentiebat,  abiectus  est  a  lohanne. 
Is  vero  scripta  aut  epistolas  ad  eum  pertulerat  a 
fratribus  qui  in  ponto  fuerunt.  It  has  already 
been  stated  that  this  tradition  respecting  Marcion 
is  not  an  isolated  one. 

Note  162,  p.  200.  — III.  36: 1  is  Presbyteri;  di- 
rectly after:  Dicunt  presbyteri  apostolorum  disci- 
puli ;  and  shortly  before,  in  connection  with  the  ac- 
count of  the  reign  of  a  thousand  years :  Presbyteri 
qui  Johannem  disci pulum  domini  viderunt. 


NOTES.  285 

Note  163,  p.  207.  —  It  has  had  a  great  many- 
stadia  to  run  through  from  its  ancient  use  down  to 
the  present  use  by  the  Romish  Church.  After 
going  through  several  hands  in  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries,  and  after  repeatedly  undergoing  revis- 
ion§  in  accord  with  the  Greek  text,  Jerome  formed 
his  text  from  it,  not  without  reference  moreover  to 
Greek  authorities  which  were  allied  to  it.  The  use 
of  the  Romish  Church  gradually  made  this  the  Vul- 
gate. It  had,  however,  experienced  many  modifi- 
cations, when  the  Roman  Curia,  towards  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  took  advantage  of  the 
general  diffusion  of  manuscripts  to  execute  an  o^ 
ficial  revision  of  the  Vulgate,  and  it  is  this  which 
now  is  authorized  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

Note  164,  p.  211.  —  It  is  an  interesting  memo- 
rial of  the  negative  school  of  criticism  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  that  its  representatives,  in  part  at  least, 
take  particular  pleasure  in  basing  their  defense  up- 
on just  those  weighty  scripture  passages  respecting 
whose  want  of  authenticity  the  criticism  which  ad- 
heres closely  to  documentary  evidence,  as  gained 
from  the  most  recent  discoveries,  leaves  no  doubt 
at  all.  Among  such  passages  may  be  reckoned 
the  close  of  Mark's  Gospel,  the  narrative  respect- 
ing the  adulteress  in  John,  and  the  story  of  the 
descent  of  the  angel  into  the  pool  of  Bethesda  in 
the  fourth  verse  of  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  same 
Gospel.     Certainly  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it 


286  ORIGIN   OF    THE   FOUR    GOSPELS. 

far  better  subserves  the  ends  oj^posed  to  apologet- 
ics to  leave  such  apocryphal  passages  as  these  in 
both  the  Gospels  mentioned,  than  by  their  omis- 
sion to  seem  to  give  advantage  to  those  who  claim 
the  apostolical  origin  of  those  Gospels.  That  that 
alliance  between  legitimism  and  its  most  deter- 
mined opponents  repeats  itself  on  a  political  field, 
argues  a  wicked  misunderstanding  on  the  part  of 
scholars  of  rej)uted  orthodoxy. 

Note  165,  p.  214.  —  Tag  loMag  yQaqjag  in  this 
connection  must  be  referred  to  other  New  Testa- 
ment Scriptures.  If  those  of  the  Old  Testament 
were  meant,  the  Pauline  epistles  would  here  be 
clearly  placed  upon  the  same  footing  with  the  Old 
Testament. 

Note  166,  p.  214.  —  Yerse  25,  against  whose 
genuineness  most  serious  objections  have  long  been 
expressed,  has  now  in  the  primitive  Codex  Sina- 
iticus  the  most  weighty  authority  against  itself. 
(It  has  been  an  error  that  do^vn  to  this  time  Cod. 
63  has  been  cited  in  the  same  sense.) 

Note  167,  p.  214.  —  For  the  purpose  of  super- 
seding Grabe's  extremely  imperfect  edition  of 
this  important  work,  I  have  long  been  making  the 
requisite  preparations  in  the  English  and  French 
libraries.     It  was  my  good  fortune  to  discover  in 


NOTES.  287 

1844  an  entirely  unknown  manuscript  bearing  on 
this  matter,  in  the  ishmcl  of  Patmos. 

Note  168,  p.  215.  —  We  can  understand  the  re- 
mark of  I.  Mtzsch  in  1810  (de  Testam.  xii.  Pa- 
triarch, etc.  Comm.  critica,  p.  17),  that  the  author 
of  this  Testament  could  not  have  lived  in  the  first 
century,  since  he  alluded  to  almost  all  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament.  "  Si  ante  casum  Hieroso- 
lymorum  floruisset,  hunc  non  tam  diserte  indicas- 
set ;  sin  omnino  saeculo  primo,  non  cognovisset  ad 
quos  fere  omnes  allusit  Novi  Testamenti  libros." 


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